Filed under: Indonesia
Dangdut, Gamelan, Jaipongan, Krontjong, Orkes Gambus, Qasidah Modern… What is it about Indonesia that makes the music their so unique?
Indonesia is a very diverse country. Just about every one of the 17,508 islands has its own cultural and artistic history that are the result of distinct ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. The archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the seventh century, when the Srivijaya Kingdom traded with China and India. Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished, until Muslim traders brought Islam to the region.
The first Europeans arrived in Indonesia in 1512, when Portuguese traders sought to monopolize the sources of nutmeg, cloves and cubeb pepper in Maluku. Dutch and British traders soon followed. In 1602, the Dutch established the Dutch East India Company and became the dominant European power. Following bankruptcy of the Dutch East India Company in 1800, the government of the Netherlands established the Dutch East Indies as a nationalized colony.
All of these different cultures – both native and foreign – collided to produce an endless variety of amazing music. Much of it has been documented and recorded, but not all of it. Research by Indonesian and international scholars is still ongoing.
One of these variations was known as Instrumentalia, which was also popular in Malaysia and Singapore. Band 4 Nada, or “4 Tones Band”, were one of the first and more popular Instrumentalia bands in Indonesia. They took the instrumental rock sounds of The Shadows and The Ventures, and mixed it with other indigenous types of music, to create a new sound quite unlike anything else. Band 4 Nada were occasionally the backing band for singers such as Ernie Djohan, Lilis Suryani, Pattie Bersaudara and Titiek Sandhora. The main guy was A. Riyanto, who later went on to form The Favorite’s Group. Apparently, Jopie Item – of Trio Bintang – was a member at some point during the history of the band. Also, this album contains covers of several Koes Plus songs.
Catalog number SKL. 003 on Sakura Records of Indonesia Manufactured by Republic Manufacturing Co. Ltd (Remaco). No release date listed.
Filed under: Turkey
This week’s guest post is by Jonathan Ward. Much like myself, Jonathan is afflicted with a rare strain of obsessive-compulsive disorder known as “record collector-itis”. But his case is much more severe, being that he collects 78s. He has put this adversity to good use with the truly amazing Excavated Shellac. The writing on his site is consistently entertaining and well researched – and puts my barely coherent ramblings to shame. Be sure to check out his Dublab session – it’s the next best thing to having him come over to your house with a stack of 78s.
I was very happy when Stuart at Radiodiffusion asked me if I’d like to provide a guest post. First, because his blog is a fascinating source of hard to find international music, and second, because it brings me out of my little world of 78rpm records featured in my own Excavated Shellac. I thought I’d throw out an important Turkish single from the era of “Anadolu Pop” (Anatolian Pop) – the influential and groundbreaking style of Turkish rock which combined both psychedelic and progressive rock influences with traditional folkloric elements.
This genre of music has been discovered and exploited by various stateside and overseas reissue companies over the past five years or so – with good reason. It’s fantastic! I suppose the US-based craze started with three compilations, Hava Narghile (Dionysus), Turkish Delights (Grey Past), and a Turkish volume of the ongoing Love, Peace & Poetry series (Shadoks). Since then, Finders Keepers has released volumes by Mustafaz Özkent, Selda, and Ersen, Shadoks has released CDs of Bunalim and Edip Akbayram, World Psychedelic has reissued important LPs by 3 Hür-el, Bülent, Erkin Koray, and Moğollar.
But this doesn’t necessarily mean the genre is tapped out. Turkey was a singles-based music industry until the mid-70s or so, and there are lots of artists that haven’t yet gone through the hipster reissue machine (Bariş Manço, for instance, hasn’t gotten his US compilation yet – though Madlib’s brother Oh No has been sampling him for quite a while). One of these is the short-lived Ağri Daği Efsanesi.
Ağri Daği Efsanesi was an early-70s collaboration lasting just two singles, between Nejat Teksoy, a member of the garage-y rock band Mavi Işiklar, and the legendary Murat Ses, keyboardist and original member of the renowned band Moğollar (“The Mongols”), widely considered the founding fathers of Anadolu Pop (and inventors of the term itself). To understand the origins of Anadolu Pop, the first two groundbreaking LPs by Moğollar would be the place to start – and Murat Ses arranged the bulk of those songs. Moğollar ‘s first LP, released by Guilde Internationale du Disque in France and titled Les Danses et Rythmes de la Turquie d’hier á aujourd’hui under the French version of their name, “Les Mogol,” was released in Turkey under the name Anadolu Pop, in fact. On it, psychedelic rock mixed with saz and davul, keyboards and organ mixed with Anatolian fiddle playing – this was an album that helped spawn a whole movement.
Murat Ses stayed with Moğollar until about 1972. Sometime around this time he formed Ağri Daği Efsanesi, named after a track on the first Moğollar LP and meaning “The Legend of Mount Ararat,” while also contributing to singles by Bariş Manço (Lambaya Püf De) and Edip Akbayram (Kaşlarin Karasina) throughout the 70s. He eventually left Turkey in the late 1970s and moved to Linz, Austria, where he received both a Masters and a Doctorate in Economics. He continues to release music today.
Catalog number DT 5089 on Diskotur of Turkey, released 1972.
Filed under: Seychelles
The Republic of Seychelles, is an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 930 miles east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar. Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius and Réunion to the south, Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest, and the Suvadives of the Maldives to the northeast. Seychelles has the smallest population of any state in Africa.
While Austronesian seafarers or Arab traders may have been the first to visit the uninhabited Seychelles, the first recorded sighting of them took place in 1502, by the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama, who passed through the Amirantes and named them after himself (islands of the Admiral). The first recorded landing and first written account was by the crew of the English East Indiaman Ascension in 1609. As a transit point for trading between Africa and Asia, they were occasionally used by pirates.
Formerly a colony of both Britain and France, The Seychelles has developed a distinct kind of music – incorporating multiple influences, including English Contredanse, Polka and Mazurka, French folk and pop, Sega from Mauritius and Réunion, Taarab, Soukous, Moutya and other pan-African genres of and Polynesian, Indian and Arcadian music. A complex form of percussion music called Contombley is popular, along with combinations of Sega and Reggae called Seggae as well as combinations of Moutya and Reggae called Mouggae and Montea which is a fusion of native folk rhythms with Kenyan Benga.
As for John Wirtz and Les Boys, there is not a whole lot of information available. They were both included on the Buda Musique compilation Music From the Seychelles – but not together. There’s one song by John Wirtz, and another by Pye (also known as Georgie Romain) & Les Boys. I have also seen Souvenir of Seychelles: The Best of John Wirtz and His New Les Boys on Ray’s Music Room. If you any information about the band, please contact me.
Catalog number TCE 1008 on Tam’s Cinema of Mahé, Seychelles. No release date listed.
Filed under: Mali
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Much like the country itself, the music of Mali is very expansive. Most of the country’s 479,000 square miles lies in the southern Sahara. So there’s lots of space to wander and get lost. This geography has influenced the Mandé people who make up most of the country’s population, and their musicians, professional performers known as griots. Over the years, other influences have been incorporated to produce a uncommon sonic blend specific to this unique landscape.
At the end of World War II, the guitar become common throughout Africa, partially resulting from the intermingling of African, American and British soldiers. Dance bands soon became popular in Mali, especially the town of Kita‘s orchestra led by Boureima Keita and Afro-Jazz de S´gou. Imported European dances were popular, especially rumbas, waltzes and Argentine-derived tangos. But by the 1960s, the influence of Cuban music began to rise – and has remained popular to this day.
After independence in 1960, Malians saw new opportunities for cultural expression in the burgeoning media of radio, television and recorded music. Under President Modibo Keita, orchestras were state-supported, including the first electric dance band, Orchestre Nationale A, as well as the Ensemble Instrumental National, comprising 40 traditional musicians from around the country and still in operation today. Other influential dance bands included Rail Band du Buffet Hôtel de la Gare and Pioneer Jazz.
Le Kéné-Star De Sikasso were, as you might have guessed, from the southern most region of Mali known as Sikasso. They originally started out as Orchestre Regional de Sikasso, and released two albums, the first one in 1968 on Republic du Mali Radiodiffusion Nationale, and the second in 1970 on Bärenreiter-Musicaphon. They also were included on a 1973 compilation called Panorama du Mali on Mali Music.
The album that is posted here, their only release credited as Le Kéné-Star De Sikasso, was later re-issued on cassette in the Eighties, and was entitled Lala. The members of the band for this recording were François Ballo, Cheick Sabibou Diabaté, Mamadou Diakité and Mamadou Touré among others who are uncredited, and was produced by Boubakar Traoré. Also, the first song on this record, “Hodi Hu Yenyan”, as well as the two songs from the Panorama du Mali compilation – along with songs by Orchestre Régional de Kayes and Super Djata Band – were included on the Mali 70 – Electric Revolution compilation released by Discograph / Syllart Productions.
Catalog number KO 77.04.16 on Mali Kunkan, released 1977.
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Filed under: Philippines
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For our second guest post here at Radiodiffusion Internasionaal, we have an entry by Greg McWhorter. Besides being a collector of records and ephemera, Greg founded Artifix Records – dubbed “the archaeologists of punk” by Johnny Stingray of The Controllers. Artifix Records mission is to reintroduce bands (a few I remember quite well) like The Bags, Catholic Discipline and White Flag to a new generation.
During the early 1960’s the instrumental bands reigned supreme throughout the Philippines club scene. Clubs with names like Wack-Wack, The Sky Room, Circuit, and Rufino Building Penthouse were host to events that featured these new instrumental groups. As mentioned in a prior post, these bands were heavily influenced by The Ventures and The Shadows and often did covers by those groups while working their own originals into their sets. The Hi-Jacks were no different, but perhaps were one of the more energetic of this new breed.
The Hi-Jacks started at the beginning of the 1960s and began releasing vinyl almost immediately. They were managed by Eddie Mesa, who was known as the Filipino Elvis. Mesa had huge success in a string of rock’n’roll records and movie appearances during the 1950s and 1960s. When he first managed the Hi-Jacks, the band mostly played and recorded covers of popular instrumental rock as well as their originals in the same vein. After The Beatles penetrated Asian radio in 1963, Mesa started using the band as his personal backing band for his recordings of Beatles songs and similar originals.
The band was fronted by Rudy “Nonoy” Jereza who played bass. Jereza is deceased now, which has prevented the band from doing reunions; although the other existing members rally around legendary Pinoy guitarist for the group, Ben Tesoro, to play sets of the group’s music at revivals. Other members throughout the years included Eddie Dizon on drums, Jesse Manahan on keyboard, Eddie Nicolas as a later vocalist (deceased), and Bert Buencamino as a second guitar. Buencamino was originally with The Moonstrucks during the 1960’s and joined the Hi-Jacks in the early 1970’s. The Hi-Jacks lasted until 1974.
Although the band released records on several different labels like Top Tunes, Alpha, and ANS; their first single was on the Dyna Records imprint. Dyna was the independent label that also broke other notable acts from the time like The Electromaniacs and Ramon Jacinto and the Riots.
Catalog number DN-7302 on Dyna Records, manufactured by Dyna Products, Ltd. in the Philippines. No release date listed.
Filed under: Morocco
Chaabi (popular) is a music consisting of numerous varieties which are descended from the multifarious forms of Moroccan folk music. Chaabi was originally performed in markets, but is now found at any celebration or meeting. Chaabi songs typically end with a leseb, or swift rhythmic section accompanied by syncopated clapping.
A sophisticated form of chaabi evolved in the 1970s competing with popular Egyptian and Lebanese music. These chaabi groups consisted of a lute and a hadjuj, with some form of drum. Eventually, new instruments like buzuks and electric guitars were added. The three most important early groups were Lemchaheb, Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala. All three bands featured politicized lyrics that got the songwriters in trouble with the government.
As for Jil Jdid… They were apparently based in Belgium at the time of this recording. But other than that, I have not been able to find any information. If you know anything about the band, please contact me.
Catalog number ST-454501 on Atlas International of Belgium, manufacture and distribution by R. C. P. Int. No release date listed.
Filed under: Sri Lanka
The Gypsies were formed in 1970 by Anton Perera in Sri Lanka. The band was comprised of Perera’s five sons (Sunil, Nihal, Piyal, Nimal, Lal) – all of whom had recently completed high school. Lead singer Sunil Perera, schooled at St Peter’s College in Colombo, renovated a portion of his house in Ratmalana into a recording studio and began recording their first album.
Their early success was due to a series of albums they released in the 1970s entitled “Dance With the Gypsies”. In the 1980s the group released their first audio cassette containing their novelty hit “Kurumitto” (“Dwarves”), which is a cover version of Dutch musician Father Abraham‘s “The Smurf Song”.
Their first performance out of Sri Lanka, as the resident band at the Delhi Taj in New Deli was for three months, was followed by successful tours in foreign countries where many Sri Lankans now reside, such as the U.K., U.S., Australia and Canada. They are still active to this day.
Thanks to Upendra Samaranayake for translating the Sinhalese.
Catalog number G T -08 on Guththila of Sri Lanka. No release date listed.
Filed under: Rwanda
♬ Ururabo
The Republic of Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. Home to approximately 10.1 million people, Rwanda supports the densest population in continental Africa, most of whom engage in subsistence agriculture. A verdant country of fertile and hilly terrain, the small republic bears the title “Land of a Thousand Hills”.
The country has received considerable international attention on account of its 1994 genocide, in which between 800,000 and one million people were killed. In 2008, Rwanda became the first country in history to elect a national legislature in which a majority of members were women.
As for Rossisendi & His Group… There is no information available. The only clue to the origin of the band, is that the song is in Kinyarwanda (also known simply as Rwanda). Kinyarwanda is a Bantu language spoken primarily in Rwanda, where it is one of the official language of the country, as well as in southern Uganda and in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
If you any information about the band, please contact me.
Catalog number PEA 226 on Pathé Records, manufactured in Kenya. No other information available.
Filed under: Burma
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This week’s post is the first in a series of guest posts. I recently came to the realization, that if there was ever going to be a post on the music of Burma, I would have to turn to Alan Bishop. Alan is best known as one third of the Sun City Girls and co-founder of Sublime Frequencies. Also, this post is the first to feature music from cassette.
After hunting all over Myanmar (Burma) during my many trips there, I’ve never come face to face with a Burmese vinyl LP. Nor have I heard of one or seen a photo of one. I also have a feeling there were few 45s although I have two children’s song recordings on 7” vinyl. Every Burmese musician or music fan I have ever spoken to claim LPs and 45’s didn’t exist between the 78 and cassette formats. Since Burma’s independence in the late 1940’s, the government has kept a fair distance from the rest of the International community and the regime discouraged western-influenced music until things loosened up a bit in the 1970’s. During the 1960’s, the local music scene wouldn’t have been allowed to work above ground as a “western-styled” record producing pop industry and it’s a truly sketchy period with hardly a spec of info. I’ve searched far and wide for anything coherent from the 1960’s and come up frustrated thus far. There are tales about how reel to reel tapes were transferred to cassette for sale in the early 1970’s. The kids would go to the shop and choose specific songs and the shop would dub a custom cassette from reels and charge accordingly per track. And the reels were apparently from copies of the master studio reels from popular groups at the time. One of the most popular, the Playboy Group, was a Burmese rock band formed in the early 1970’s by guitarist/vocalist Than Naing (often referred to as “Playboy Than Naing”) Other members of the group included Ko Kyaw Min (guitar), Ko Kyaw Naing (bass), Zaw Win Shein (drums), Tin Oo Thaung (keyboards) and Than Naing’s wife Pearl (vocalist). The band specialized in western-styled cover songs and helped turn on Burmese society to a wide variety of foreign artists including The Beatles, The Doors, CCR, The Youngbloods, and many others. The band was active into the 1980’s and recorded many cassette-only releases during their career. A few years ago, they reformed and began recording and performing again. Than Naing now owns a construction company in Yangon and in 2005, became committee secretary for the newly founded Myanmar Music Association.
/ “Flower With Only a Night Time Scent” – This track is Than Naing’s clever way of describing a prostitute. He sings the story of a woman (flower) who is only sweet to him in the evenings (has a night time scent only).
Alan Bishop (March 2009)
No catalog number, record label or release date listed. Distributed by Tapyi Thu A Twat of Myanmar.
Filed under: Georgia
♬ Aдaндaли
Georgia (Georgian: 
, Sakartvelo) is a transcontinental country in the Caucasus region, located at the dividing line between Europe and Asia. It is bordered by the Russian Federation to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Armenia to the south, and Turkey to the southwest.
Founded in the capitol city of Tbilisi in 1958 by lead vocalist and guitarist Robert Bardzimashvili, Oрэрa became a Soviet sensation on the scale of Beatlemania. The group, which included several male voices and sometimes a female one, grew out of the Georgian musical tradition of polyphonic choirs. They fused many styles – choral pop, jazz, Georgian and Russian folk music into their own sound. The band also launched the careers of Vakhtang “Buba” Kikabidze and Nani Bregvadze.
Oрэрa reached a peak of thier popularity by 1967 when they represented the USSR at the World EXPO in Canada. The band was one of a few Soviet groups that were allowed to tour around the world. Their repertoire included popular Soviet songs as well as folk songs from different countries and renowned international hits.
In 1975, Bardzimashvili left Oрэрa to form one of the first Soviet rock bands – Via-75, who were popular throughout the Soviet Union as one of the first and officially sanctioned rock bands in the country. In the post-Soviet years, Bardzimashvili headed the Tbilisi Opera and established the Lakhti Studio music school for children. Bardzimashvili was awarded the highest official honor of the National Artist of the Georgian SSR, and in 2000 Oрэрa received a star on the Plozhad Zvezd in Moscow. He passed away passed away in 2003.
Catalog number ГOCT – 5289 – 61 / ЦEHA 1 – 30 on Dolgoigrayuschaya of Tbilisi, Georgia. No release date listed.
