Cigarette Royalty
* Sein Sah Thin: Really Strange And Weird Things (5 mb)
* Tonte Theintan: Lover of The Winter and Snow (9 mb)
* Ni Ni Win Schwe: My Darling’s Love Arrow (4.5 mb)
From Princess Nicotine : Sublime Frequencies : SF 006
My Gawd! I’m listening to Sein Sah Thin and my mind is on the verge of having a meltdown. I’m having a great deal of trouble comprehending what’s going on here. I mean, this sounds like some machine gone wild and crazy. All I’ve gotta say is, I’ll take two of whatever those musicians are on!
Sublime Frequencies does it again with this release, Princess Nicotine : Folk And Pop Music Of Myanmar (Burma) Vol. 1. For those who don’t know this label has been quietly, but very quickly, releasing ethnographic musical/visual treasures for a little while now. I’ve found that Ethnographic music explorations are either one of two things. They are either super slick/well produced pseudo-global music stylings or they are very well documented, academic exercises. Sublime Frequencies does neither of those things. Their releases are often raw sound-collages of street sounds, musicians, and blasts from short wave transmissions. Listening to their releases is almost like walking the dusty streets of whatever region they’ve been exploring. They also include almost no extra information in their packaging. This can be somewhat frustrating, as I’d really like to know more about the musicians and the music.
Princess Nicotine is one of their more straight forward releases, eschewing sound-collages for a more straight up presentation of the music. These tracks are simply amazing.
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Sorry about the late post! I was working on it when I decided that I might have a virus on my computer. So I took care of that, but then it was time to go see about 20 old dudes rock out on various banjos, jugs, brass instruments and sing olde timey songs. Totally rockin’.
If you’re into M.C. Escher and Legoes, check out this awesome site. You know what? Even if you’re not into either of those things, you should check it out. This dude and his friend have made lego models of various M.C. Escher drawings! I mean, if that’s not cool, I’m not exactly sure what is.
r.piggy said,
January 25, 2005 @ 7:22 pm
Whoa! That’s something, every time they start up again I do consider meltdown. And don’t apologize for this late post, it’s great. Apologize for your last post.
michael said,
February 4, 2005 @ 2:50 am
These Burmese songs are great especially the 1st and 3rd tracks. I love the mad xylophone? gongs? etc.
cb said,
February 4, 2005 @ 3:53 am
Yeah, I’m not quite sure what’s being played on these tracks. But it’s amazing that everything sounds like it’s just on the verge of falling apart, but it never does. It’s nervewracking.
-cb
su said,
February 6, 2005 @ 11:11 am
hey just discovered yr blog today. sweet stuff.
this burmese stuff is really out of this world - especially ‘cuz i used to live in the middle east; most people have satellite dish TV there and we used to be able to pick up national myanmar tv and it was wild! black & white, live acts all day long, with a few breaks for the news… they were all so joyful and happy, it was intense. good stuff!