Bosavi: Rainforest Music From Papua New Guinea [Box set]

Amazon.com
This gorgeous, three-CD boxed set provides the unprecedented opportunity of experiencing pop music at ground zero. The Bosavi people of New Guinea's Southern Highlands were self-sufficient and undisturbed until the incursion of Christian missionaries in the early 1970s. The religious ceremonial songs prohibited by the evangelicals survive in Disc 3: Sounds and Songs of Ritual and Ceremony, collected by field recordist Steven Feld in the 1960s-'70s. Rich with responses to the bountiful natural world around them, the mostly vocal ritual songs include funerary weeping songs and gisalo seance songs. The accompanying 80-page booklet helps put this material in a cultural perspective. At the far extreme are the effervescent compositions by the first-generation string bands who can be heard inventing Bosavi pop music on Disc 1: Guitar Bands of the 1990s. Flush with an out-of-place, almost Appalachian flavor and buzzing with slightly discordant guitar harmonies, the performances are so full of enthusiasm and steely attention to newly emergent craft, it's hard to turn your back on their sheer joy. Disc 2: Sounds and Songs of Everyday Life straddles the religious and entertainment discs with distinctive male and female work songs, including "Men's Vocal Quartet with Seed-pod Rattles," which only needs a guitar arrangement to become the next local pop chartbuster. This disc closes with an intimate 25-minute soundscape of the aural environment of the Bosavi, ripe with bird and insect songs plus noises of villagers at work and play. --Bob Tarte

Bosavi: Rainforest Music From Papua New Guinea,Various Artists,Smithsonian Folkways,Ethnic,Guinea,Int'l & World Music,New Guinea,New Guinean,Papua New Guinea,Pop,World Music,Worldbeat

Average customer rating: Primitive voices

Bosavi: Rainforest Music From Papua New Guinea Various Artists Manufacturer: Smithsonian Folkways ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Guinea | Africa | International | Styles | Music General | International | Styles | Music Bargain Box Sets | International General | International | Today's Deals in Music | Formats | Music All Bargain Titles | International General | International | Today's Deals in Music | Formats | Music General | International | Indie Music | Stores | Music Smithsonian Folkways Store | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music Similar Items: Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression (Publications of the American Folklore Society New Series) Voices Of The Rainforest: A Day In The Life Of The Kaluli People Why Suya Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People Songs & Dances From Papua New Guinea: Healing, Feasting & Magical Ritual The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe ASIN: B000059RTY Release Date: 2001-03-27

Tracks:

1. My Father, My Heart - Kemuli String Band
2. Kemuli - Kemuli String Band
3. Oh No! - Kemuli String Band
4. What We Said - Kemuli String Band
5. My Mother - Kemuli String Band
6. Really Hungry! - Gasali Mates II String Band
7. Sadness - Lus Mangi Grin Neks String Band
8. BBK Brother - Difalasulu String Band
9. E-yo, E-yo - Tasi Kabulo: String Band
10. Long Ago - Gusuwa String Band
11. Father, Mother - BVDC String Band
12. Where Has My Mother Gone? - BVDC II String Band
13. Rosi, Rosi - BVDC II String Band
14. Blue Mountain - BVDC II String Band
15. Sorry, My Sister! You People Go! - BVDC III String Band
16. Air Niugini Plane - BBK String Band
17. One Time - BBK String Band
18. The Sun Is Setting - Gasali Mates String Band
19. My Sweetheart - Gasali Mates String Band

Tracks:

1. A Men's Work Group Clears A New Garden
2. Ulahi Sings While Scraping Sago Pith
3. Ulahi Sings While Making Sago
4. Fo:fo: And Miseme Sing At Their Sago Place
5. UIahi And Eyo:bo Sing With Afternoon Cicadas
6. Ulahi And Eyo:bo Sing At A Waterfall
7. Men's Vocal Quartet With Seed-pod Rattles
8. A Large Men's Collective Work Group Sing And Whoop
9. Gaima Plays The Bamboo Jew's Harp
10. Voices In The Forest: A Village Soundscape

Tracks:

1. Funerary Sung - Weeping Group
2. Funerary Sung - Weeping By Gania And Famu
3. Funerary Sung - Weeping By Hane
4. Seance Gisalo Song By Aiba With Weeping
5. Ceremonial Gisalo Performance By Halawa
6. Group Ceremonial Drumming, Ilib Kuwo:
7. Ceremonial Ko:luba Song - 1
8. Ceremonial Ko:luba Song - 2
9. Ceremonial Ko:luba Song - 3
10. Ceremonial Ko:luba Song - 4
11. Ceremonial Iwo: Song - 1
12. Ceremonial Iwo: Song - 2
13. Ceremonial Iwo: Song - 3
14. Ceremonial Iwo: Song - 4
15. Women's Ceremonial Iwo: Song - 1
16. Women's Ceremonial Iwo: Song - 2
17. Ceremonial Sabio Duet
18. Ceremonial Sabio Quartet

Amazon.com

This gorgeous, three-CD boxed set provides the unprecedented opportunity of experiencing pop music at ground zero. The Bosavi people of New Guinea's Southern Highlands were self-sufficient and undisturbed until the incursion of Christian missionaries in the early 1970s. The religious ceremonial songs prohibited by the evangelicals survive in Disc 3: Sounds and Songs of Ritual and Ceremony, collected by field recordist Steven Feld in the 1960s-'70s. Rich with responses to the bountiful natural world around them, the mostly vocal ritual songs include funerary weeping songs and gisalo seance songs. The accompanying 80-page booklet helps put this material in a cultural perspective. At the far extreme are the effervescent compositions by the first-generation string bands who can be heard inventing Bosavi pop music on Disc 1: Guitar Bands of the 1990s. Flush with an out-of-place, almost Appalachian flavor and buzzing with slightly discordant guitar harmonies, the performances are so full of enthusiasm and steely attention to newly emergent craft, it's hard to turn your back on their sheer joy. Disc 2: Sounds and Songs of Everyday Life straddles the religious and entertainment discs with distinctive male and female work songs, including "Men's Vocal Quartet with Seed-pod Rattles," which only needs a guitar arrangement to become the next local pop chartbuster. This disc closes with an intimate 25-minute soundscape of the aural environment of the Bosavi, ripe with bird and insect songs plus noises of villagers at work and play. --Bob Tarte

Customer Reviews:

Primitive voices.......2001-05-25

I've had this cd for a few days now and have listened to each disc three times so far. First I'll give you some general information about this boxed-set.

Disc 1 is made up of the new style of music that is currently gaining strength in Papua New Guinea... acoustic guitar bands (recorded in the 1990's). The guitar-band music has a mixture of influences, ranging from some of the traditional vocal elements of the region, the chorus unison of Christian missionary musics, and also some of the rhythmic blockiness of Western popular musics. This isn't the radio-ready electronic beats of a group like Deep Forest though. The guitar music ends up sounding like a sort of American folk music, with the lyrical and vocal elements of Papua New Guinea. One of the lead vocalists, Rebeka, has a really great voice.

Disc 2 is more traditional. It is all sounds and work-songs, recorded during everyday life. These recordings are all from the 1970s and '80s. There are songs sung by men as they move logs out of the forest, songs by women as they scrape sago (a food), etc... The songs are mainly small-group vocals, with the accompanying percussion being work-related. Like the sound of whatever tool it is that they use when they pound the sago. There are also songs that mimic the sounds of jungle creatures familiar to the people. Also thoroughout this set you will hear the sounds of jungle creatures and background chatter. If it happened while the person was singing, you hear it.

Disc 3 is the oldest, most primitive music on here. It is largely music that is extinct now, as it was music that accompanied ceremonies and rituals which are gone now. To Western ears, much of the music on disks 2 and 3 may sound "sloppy". These 2 disks contain what may be the singlemost primitive musical form(s) in my collection, and being that I have a fair amount of field-recordings of Indigenous musics from all over the world, that is saying something. Much of this music does not adhere to what we think of as "highly technically developed" idea's of meter, vocal unison, etc... Depending on what you want or expect from this set, this could be a good or bad thing. If you're willing to mentally let yourself travel way back in time to humans in their natural, primitive state, this music is rather fascinating. What really strikes me about some of the music on disks 2 and 3 (especially disk 3 from about track 5 onward) is that there must be a large amount of echo where these people live. With their voices and rattles they do uncanny musical interpretations of echoes and the Doppler Effect.

I definitly want you to think about this set thoroughly. It is most certainly not for everyone, but will indeed speak deeply to some of you. More than being like "an album", it is an aural documentray of Papua New Guinea and the changes it has undergone. No matter how it is received by anyone's personal tastes, it is a great document of a group of peoples and their disappearing traditional ways of life, song, and thought. It also comes with a thorough 72-page booklet.

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