Kukerpillid (Мелодия)

I lived a few years in Estonia which coincided with the decline of my obsession for hunting down weird records. So originally I may have expected to accumulate a crateful of oddities, but sadly, I never really came across much and my leisure pursuits shifted to other matters such as drinking and complaining. The Soviet Melodia imprint was essentially the only record label, being state-run and releasing thousands of records (all on flimsy vinyl with poor sleeve printing), and the secondhand shops were full of piles of these records. I think early on I bought a few random ones based on the covers, being unable to read Cyrllic myself, and batted 0.000 on the batch. All I really remember is a bunch of classical 'pops' arrangements, sometimes of Beatles songs if I was lucky, or else just forgettable vocal music. Now, I know there's a whole subculture devoted to hunting down the gems and gems there sure are - I heard a DJ once in Helsinki who spinned exclusively Soviet vinyl and it was astounding, all weird surf-rock sci-fi music and otherwise unclassifiable genre distortions. But you know, you gotta dig through a pile of dogshit to find a few kernels of corn, or whatever the expression is, and I just didn't (and still don't) have the wherewithal for such pastimes. Somehow this Kukerpillid LP stayed in my accumulation, though listening now I'm not sure why. This is a record of rave-up Estonian village folk/country music, sung by a group of moustachioed men in the early 80s and if you like these sounds then there's a lot to love, as there's 21 songs here. I do actually enjoy this sound, a real hoedown that reminds me of American country-and-western with even a few dixieland jazz elements sprinkled in. The singing is kinda funny, even if you know the language, being hearty men singing in unison, plus, those moustaches. The bass is handled by what sounds like a tuba, though the blurry photos on the back cover show no such instrument - there's also accordion, banjo and a decent violin and simple 1-2-1-2 drumming on what sounds like tin cans. These guys can play - the songs are fast and tight, and there's occasionally sea-shanty vocals ('Joogilaul' which is translated into 'Drink-Hail' and sounds like it) that make it feel even more like an outtake from a film. A few original tunes are sprinkled throughout, most composed by Toomas Kõrvitz, who I suspect is the band leader. They follow from the traditional template, but some ('Oh Roosi, Roosi' for example) have some rock residue, like even electric guitar solos. The manufacture of 'tradition' is a topic for critical anthropologists and not for me, but I have seen how identity has been made particularly in traditionally occupied cultures (Scotland, Estonia and Finland). I'm mildly curious as to how much the members of Kukerpillid invented the traditions here, though of course that's a Pandora's box I shouldn't open. But the Soviet Union is the elephant in the village barn here, and its presence is strongly felt (by me, at least) far beyond the state-owned pressing plant that made this.

Ramnad Krishnan - 'Vidwan: Songs of the Carnatic Tradition' (Nonesuch Explorer)

These four sides of Carnatic classical music were recorded while the musicians were in a residency at Wesleyan. No date is given but this came out in '68 so one would have to assume it was from around this time - during the summer of love, perhaps? Krishnan has a strong and reedy voice, and it's recorded really up-front, making these Telugu lyrics really reverberate. Of course I don't know what they're saying, and I don't know anything about Carnatic music, but that's the escapism of music. Not that when listening to this material (or anything else equally impenetrable to me on a linguistic level) I make up my own meanings; maybe when I was younger I did or I tried to interpret a narrative through non-verbal moods and images at least, but now I just ride along with the sounds, harmonies, layers, assonances and dissonances. Most of these tracks are loooong (10-20 minutes), built around little more than a violin, some percussion, and the everlasting tampura drone that makes Indian music so distinct. V. Thyagarajan is the violinist, and he plays it seated and upright, like a tiny cello - this allows him to saw in and out quickly around the notes and this leads to some stunning, stark passages where everything drops out except the violin and tampura. This is recorded in a way that makes it sound somewhat tinny, or maybe a better word would be 'crisp'; the little bells on the percussion instruments sound like they are right here in the room with me, and that presence gives it a lasting physical feeling, especially due to its length. Four sides are a lot of Carnatic tradition, and each seems to be punctuated with the same structural shifts as the others - solos, long jammy passages, and vocal fore-fronting. The fourth side is billed as an improvisation, so I spent the whole record looking forward to it, hoping that I would be hearing some sort of freakout AMM/No Neck Blues Band style jam. But alas, it was an improvisation around fairly tightly defined Carnatic traditional structures. Which is to say that its still a fine side o' vinyl, as fine as the other three, but I didn't detect any increased freedom or looseness here; this is hardly Tristano's 'Digression' or Coltrane's Ascension - but that's OK, its not necessary at all for everyone in the 60s to let loose in a wild way. Krishnan died in the early 70s but is still well regarded in this world; Thyagarajan popped up on a lot of recordings by Jon Higgins, who is also one of Carnatic music's greatest practitioners, despite being originally from Massachusetts (thanks, Wikipedia).

Konono N°1 - 'Congotronics' (Ache)

Somehow this feels like a long time ago already; it has been 13 years, I guess, but this time has passed somehow both slowly and quickly at the same time. Which is maybe a cheap metaphor for describing the music of Konono?Congotronics arrived at the right time for me. Perhaps it had felt like I and my friends had exhausted our investigations of caucasian music as far as they could go, a feeling which was absolutely not true but certainly how I felt at the time. Perhaps the sheer awesomeness of this music, equal parts novelty, energy and magic, was undeniable. And why not? The newsprint poster included here explicitly maps out the connection between this recording and 'today's most underground forms of music', no doubt referring to their use of homemade electronic amplifiers. I guess that's something, though I've been to basement noise gigs in Ohio built around similar homemade amplifiers and it felt nothing like Congotronics. This isn't a blown out, distorted sound but one that is bathed in a warm fuzz. The bass likeme is the star of the show and the reason I like to listen to this on vinyl; its tones are soothing despite having a thump and kick. The percussion, well, it's all percussion I guess, but the non-likembe percussion, being pots, pans and tam-tam, feel more like a light dressing on top. The pulse here is not so much hypnotic as scatterbrained; there's an off-kilter balance throughout, constructed by the rising and interacting waves of likembes. The slow numbers, 'Kule Kule' and its reprise, are my favourites, as they have the same ability to pull my head and my heart together as I first felt when hearing Steve Reich and Philip Glass. The longer pieces, well, they're just a party that never seems to stop. I'm no expert on African music but have my fair share of Ocora releases and it's easy to make a superficial connection between the structures of those recordings and these. Horizontality is the game here, but that could just as easily work as a comparison to, well, 'today's most underground forms of music' circa 2005 (so, really, yesterday's). It's logical that this hit when it did; the predominantly white sounds of my life were struggling to accommodate more disparate influences, and I remember a lot of local rock/post-punk bands employing 'African' material, not to mention stuff like Vampire Weekend. Hey, it happened before in the early 80s too; white is always going to look to black for inspiration and I'm not one to get hung up on authenticity. But this still transports me to never-actually-experienced smoggy night in Kinshasa; it's this type of audiotourism that justifies owning so many goddamned records.