Search - Various Artists :: Voices Of The Rainforest: A Day In The Life Of The Kaluli People

An ambient ethnomusicological narrative

john37481 | Seattle USA | 03/20/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Interesting, enjoyable record, but not for everybody. The album depicts an archetypal day in the life of the Bosavi people of Papua New Guinea. Some of the tracks are ambient recordings of jungle noises, with interesting titles that are apparently literal translations of Bosavi idiomatic phrases -- "From Morning Night to Real Morning," "From Afternoon to Afternoon Darkening," "From Night to Inside Night." Some of the tracks are women and men singing alone or with others, melodically repetitive & motivic, rhythmically subtle, energetic songs. One lovely, mesmeric track is of somebody playing a "Bamboo Jew's Harp" for four and a half minutes. Noises of the jungle accompany all of the "music" tracks. The excellent booklet notes by the producer/ethnographer inform us that the Bosavi people think of music and jungle noises as contiguous. Their phrase for music translates literally as "lift-up-over-sounding" -- a beautiful, evocative expression. According to the booklet notes, the Bosavi's homeland was threatened by surrounding industrialization. The Bosavi people knew this, and their fear led them to abandon the ceremonial singing included on the record during the time the album was recorded.In one view, this album could be viewed as a mixture of 3 elements: the fascinating booklet notes, the interesting ambient sounds, and the lively human music. (Being a typical westerner, I hear the jungle noises & the human "lift-up-over-sounding" as separate but related phenomena.) But the album also works as an aesthetically satisfying whole: It's a poignant narrative of the life of a group of people in a place far from the industrialized world, "from morning night to inside night." Poignant, because the Bosavi way of life was threatened at the time of recording, and perhaps by now has disappeared."