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b/art's Playlist for Maandag 6 December 1999 (17.27- 21.00)
Ancient Avant India Soundings | |
| Cut | Artist |
|---|---|
| WRECK THIS MESS | |
| Dadra | Ravi Shankar [1] |
| Wreck This Mess Story (vocals only) #v03.o1299 | |
| End (India's Reversal) | DJ Spooky [2] |
| ABoneCroneDrone #5 | Sheila Chandra [3] |
| Nothing / Kála | Bill Laswell et al. [4] |
| Harmon Dub | Black Star Liner [5] |
| Dadra | Ravi Shankar [1] |
| Tripping India | If, Bwana [6] |
| Hot / Sexy / WTM Jingle #11.23w97tm | |
| Maru-Bihag | Ravi Shankar [1] |
| Spring | Muki [7] |
| DISTURBING FAITH [7a] | |
| Weston Components Jingle [8] | |
| Khal Nayak Hun Main | Lax Mikant Pyarelal & Anand Bakshi [8a] |
| Reading from P.L. Wilson's "Scandals: Essays in Islamic Heresy" | Pieter P. [9] |
| Pamadam Mast Qalandar | Reshma [9a] |
| Phir Mujhe-Deeda-e-tar Yaad Aya | Lata Mangeshkar & Hridaynath Mangeshkar [10] |
| Krishna Bhagwan Halya Dwarka | Anita Gadhavi [11] |
| Sharada Vidyadani Dayani | Bhimsen Joshi [12] |
| Pallavi | L. Subramaniam [13] |
| Freedom / Peace / WTM Jingle#11.23wa97tm | |
| Maru-Bihag | Ravi Shankar [1] |
| PLANET OF SOUND [13a] | |
| Apari (Duo) | Kishori Amankar & Dr. Balamurali Krishnani [14] |
| Track One | Ghazal Music [15] |
| Stop Over In Bombay | Alice Coltrane [16] |
| Merzbow-esque Raga | Ramesh Srinivasan & San Fran |
| Jammers | |
| Shree Ganantham Raga: Hamsdhwani | Ramesh Srinivasan (live in the studio) [18] |
| India & Its Imitators | Cul de Sac [19] |
| Nameless Indian Tune | Loop Guru [20] |
| DISTURBING FAITH | |
| Super Hit Techno House Baba Madonna Radio Commercials [21] | |
| Ecstacy in Bombay | Baba Sehgal [21a] |
| Meri aankhon ka kajal | Ila Arun [22] |
| Chok There (Bombay Mix) | Apache Indian [23] |
| Saamajavaragamana | Kunnakkudi Vaidyanathan & Zakir Hussain [24] |
| Choli ke peechhe | Alka Yagnik, Ila Arun & Chorus |
| Khal Nayak Hun Main | Laxmikant Pyarelal & Anand Bakshi [25] |
| Mata Sheranwali Bharde Jholi Khali | Suresh Wadkar & Anuradha Paudwal [26] |
| Hot / Sexy / WTM Jingle #11.23w97tm | |
| Freedom / Peace / WTM Jingle#11.23wa97tm | |
| [1] "The Sounds of India" by Ravi Shankar accompanied by Chatur Lal on tabla and NC Mullick on tambura on Columbia Records [CS 9296] Ravi Shankar from the "Genius of Ravi Shankar" liner notes: "Ragas are precise melody forms. A raga is not a mere scale - nor is it a mode. Each ragfa has its own ascending and descending movement, and those subtle touches and uses of microtones and stresses on particular notes. With the tamboura, the drone instrument in the background, the soloist does free improvisation known as alap, after which he starts the tune based on a rhythmic framework known as tala. He can choose from many talas such as tintal, a rhythmic cycle of 16 beats. Or jhaptal, having 10 beats. The tabla ... which keeps this framework, just plays the thekas, or beats, in the beginning - then starts the progressions of playing 1st smaller themes and then longer ones. The western listener will appreciate our music more if listens with an open and relaxed mind ... [the music should not] be thought of as akin to jazz, despite the improvisation and exciting rhythms present in both kinds of music." | |
| [2] "Necropolis: The Dialogic Project" on Knitting Factory www.knittingfactory.com is one of the more interesting discs out of KF and it is already 3 years old. The ambitious and driven DJ Spooky (competing, it seems with Laswell, to be the world's most omnipresent and prolific) remixes NY's illbient masters. Read through some of the pomo speak and you will hear and even read some interesting thoughts. | |
| [3] ABoneCroneDrone by Sheila Chandra on REAL World. A fine and active presence on that slender border between tradition and experimentation, pop and classical. | |
| [4] "City of Light": The India Project with Bill Laswell, Coil, Lori Carson, Janet Rienstra, Trilok Gurtu, Tetsuo Inoue, Christopher James. Somewhat interesting exploration of Indian ideas. Some interesting music but as is usual with many of Laswell's conceptual projects they ooze hifalutin pretension which is sometimes redeemed by the playing and compositions as it is here. | |
| [5] "Eastern Uprising: Dance Music From the Asian Underground" on Sony. Hardly underground and some very mediocre examples of modern Indian-influenced dance music from the UK. This piece by Black Star Liner is great and as frenetic as the cat-and-mouse playing of Indian classical musicians as they improv. A dovetail of drum and bass and the freentic aspects of a raga. Other outstanding pieces by Earthtribe, Patrina and Masters of Sound. | |
| [6] "Tripping India" by If, Bwana on Pogus http://www.taojones.com/pogus.htm comes from the early 80s cassette manipulators which heralded the cottage industry cassette revolution and the liberation of music from those who control the purse strings. They continue now into ever deeper explorations of the point where experiment meets roots. This is piece includes "manipulated percussionists with an audiologue of Dan & Detta Andreana's [veterans of the 80s cassette music explosion] trip through India - very evocative. Exotica rendered anthropological and sonic. | |
| [7] I know nothing about this piece expcept that it is a kind of drum bassy piece with a long sample from some testy and opinionated guru: "Simplicity is to live without ideas. Ideas create complexity.You may be pretending to be a great saint and mahatma but existence will never know about it because existence never knows about anything false. Anything false happens outside of existence. It knows only the real. The real you. Simplicity means to just yourself ... with no goal, no ideas. All Ideas are crap. Is crap - all of them. One needs guts to be simple." | |
| [7a] DISTURBING FAITH By Pieter (Bospunk). Former radio shows include *Ghetto Blaster* (Staatsradio, Amsterdam. Started 1985; continued as the 3-person show *Radio Grömpf* till approx. '89), and *Terminal Vacation* (grunge hop & ethnic hardcore; Radio 100, Amsterdam, approx. 1990 - '93). Currently working on the 3-person project *Disturbing Faith* (together with gothic-oriented Té, of De Inrichting and Korsakoff a.o., and jazzy bluesy hiphopsy rastafary Anthony, numerous guest appearances on Radio 100), soon to air on one of Amsterdam's remaining underground pirate stations. The songs for DF's contribution to the 12/06/99 WTM/POS/DF Indian Nite collaboration were mostly collected during an extensive trip throughout India in the winter of '93/'94, and a month-long trip through Rajasthan and Gujarat in early '96. Having acquired a definite taste for all things Indian ever since, some material was added later on. | |
| [8] Many prerecorded music cassettes in India begin with commercials.[8] Many prerecorded music cassettes in India feature commercials. This one taken from "Khal-Naaikaa" (Possibly "The Villainness"), a soundtrack Peter ended up buying when looking for the soundtrack "Khal Nayak" ("The Villain") | |
| [8a] "Khal Nayak" A movie soundtrack. Made famous by the hit "Chuli Ka Peeche" which means literally "what is under your bra?" To which the woman responds 'my heart, my heart." | |
| [9] Religious song from and about a Sufi order, the Khalandari, still alive in Pakistan. Pieter reading from Scandals: Essays in Islamic Heresy. Religious song from and about a Sufi order, the Qalandariyya, now languishing in India but apparently still alive in Pakistan. Pieter: "In his excellent book on some of the wilder Sufi Orders, "Scandal: Essays in islamic Heresy" (Autonomedia, Brooklyn, NY, 1988), Peter Lamborn Wilson writes the following about this order: '[Members of this wandering order] can still be seen in Persia, Afghanistan and India. They are religious mendicants, sometimes rather irreligious, and dress colorfully in robes sewn with patches. They carry axes and begging bowls, and either grow their hair and beards very long, or shave themselves completely... [Lal Husayn] seems to exemplify the Qalandar spirit, the way of the wild dervish, intoxicated and erotic. Husayn was a pious and ascetic sufi who used to spend every night immersed to his waist in the river, reading the Koran. One night however he suddenly laughed and hurled the Book into the water, where it sank beneath the waves. He shaved his beard and took to wearing bright ruby-red (*lal*) robes, wandering around Lahore spouting poetry and nonsense. One day he saw a beautiful young Brahmin boy named Madho and fell in love with him. After much courting of the boy, and despite resistance from Madho's family, Lal Husayn became his spiritual master and lover. Some say he converted the whole Hindu family to Islam through a miracle, but a more reliable version claims he had no interest in converting anyone to anything except the supremacy of love, which he extolled in Punjabi lyrics of still-widespread popularity. When they died, Madho and Lal Husayn were buried in the same tomb [in Lahore].'" (p. 124 & pp. 199-200) | |
| [9a] Pieter: "A song about another (perhaps *the*) central figure to the Qalandari, Lal Shabaz Qalandar (``the Ruby Hawk''). Travellers may know his name from the favorite exclamation used by Indian saddhus when lighting their chillum: ``Wa! Lal Shabaz Qalandar!'' His tomb is in Hyderabad, Pakistan and is not to be missed if you're in the area, or so I hear. (*Mast*, incidentally, stands for ``elation; intoxication''; a word now used to describe the state of rampant wild elephants.) This song in celebration of Lal Shabaz is sung by the famous female vocalist, Reshma." | |
| [10] Song of Sufic, or simply independent, character from the North Indian poet, Mirza Ghalib (approx. 1794-1869), sung by famous singer Lata Mangeshkar (rumored to have made up to 30,000 recordings!). Music by Hridaynath Mangeshkar. A possibly apocryhal anecdote on Ghalib I picked up from a businessman on my first flight to India: Mirza Ghalib was caught drinking wine in a temple one day and he was told by a priest to take his profanities elsewhere. Mirza Ghalib replied `You show me a place where God is absent and I will go and drink my wine there.''' The Urdu lyrics of this song can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Ginza/6631/ghalib49.html Find biographical material on Ghalib at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~navin/india/songs/ghalib/intro.g For a biography of Lata Mangeshkar, check out http://www.tapeweb.com/biolata.html ) | |
| [11] Pieter: "A song from Dwarka in Gujarat (Western India), a city totally devoted to the worship of Krshna and rumored to be 1 of India's 4 holiest cities. Bear in mind that there must be thousands of cities in India with a claim to the same effect. This recording taken from one of Music Today (Living Media India Ltd.)'s excellent series, in this case vol. 1 of the Gujarat volume of their Folk Artistes series on all of India's separate states. High-quality cassettes, well worth the extra rupees (some 65 rp., or dfl. 3.25, on my last visit)." | |
| [12] Celebrating the Mother Goddess in one of her many forms. A song in the Bhakti tradition (an ecstatic, folkish form of Hinduism). Another Music Today recording, from their Bhaktimala-Shakti series. For a biography of Joshi, see: http://www.chembur.com/bhim/index.htm | |
| [13] From the album "Sarasvati." By one of India's top performers in the Karnatic tradition. From the cover: ``The *Karnatak* music of South India is a micro-tonal, modal art form built upon a highly developed theoretical foundation, with melody and rhythm as its two vectors. The characteristics unique to a vast body of art songs of a religious nature known as *krti*, is embodies what is purely a South Indian ethos. (...) The characteristics unique to *Karnatak* music are its complex rhythmic patterns and the finely embellished ornamentation of the notes. Within the body of the fixed *Karnatak* composition always lies the heart of improvisation. Both melodic and rhythmic improvisation create the dynamics and the dialogue that become the language of this music. *Krti*, a song of praise or adoration, is the most popular form of *Karnatak* composition and expresses devotion to a particular Hindu deity, in Tamil, Telugu or Sanskrit. (...) These compositions are set to a specific *ragam* (modal scale) and *talam* (rhythmic cycle). A *krti* consists of three parts, *pallavi*, *anupallavi* and *caranam*, which progressively become more complex...'' Fellow musicians: Viji Subramaniam (tambura); T.H. Subaschandran (mridangam/ghatam) | |
| [13a] Ramesh is from San Francisco and of Indian ancestry. He has studied Karnatic singing for some 16 years and has given numerous public recitals. His show, Planet of Sound began in San Francisco at a college station there. He has been working (and drinking and playing) in Amsterdam for some 2 years now and his show has been following mine for much of that time. He keeps telling me his name means god and i keep telling him i'm a cartoon character. His show veers far off the traditional path - his musical tastes take him to Germany for kraut rock and into other worlds for noise jazz which goes from Ayler to Sonic Youth, to Merzbow, to Tit Wrench ... | |
| [14] Kishori Amankar, a North Indian female vocalist, & Dr. Balamurali Krishnania, well-known karnatic vocalist. A synthesis between North and South Indian musical styles. An improvisation based around a structured song. | |
| [15] Somewhat non-traditional style of music because it combines Persian music with Indian music. | |
| [16] From "Journey to Satchidinanda" by the second wife of John Coltrane and a brilliant harp and piano player in her own right. With Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Ben Riley. Jan. 26, 1970. | |
| [17] A jam session recorded several years ago of Ramesh and some of his noise pals. | |
| [18] A live performance. Kirtina is a standard form of karnatic song consisting of 3 parts which is in honor of the god Ganesha who is the remover of all obstacles. | |
| [19] A song Ramesh thought had parallels or pretentions to being "Indian-esque." | |
| [20] A strange sprawling warping of Indian sounds mashed into modern blips ands waves of samples. | |
| [21] Very popular pop singer from Bombay (or Mumbai, these days). I'm unsure about his political stance (if any), but I do know he speaks out publicly against India's communalism, specifically the strife between Hindus & Moslems. This song (title in Hindi script) taken from the album *Dr. Dhingra* ('94). On a final train trip from Varanasi to Delhi & then home, jaded from 3,5 months travel in India, some youngsters first introduced me to Baba on their walkman. For lack of a common language, they gave me the thumbs-up & assured me in no uncertain terms that Baba was ``Pepsi''. He sure was, dudes. Acha, aray! | |
| [22] Another mega pop- & Bollywood star. From her album "Vote for Ghaghra: Music of the people for the people by the people." | |
| [23] Classic bangra reggae ragamuffin pop rap. Extended remix of the *No Reservations* ('93) version, taken from the collection *Nuff Vibes* ('93). | |
| [24] Another classic in the modern Karnatic tradition. From their album "Colours" ('92). | |
| [25] From "Khal Nayak", the soundtrack Pieter was looking for. Pieter Picked this one up in a roti bar on a side alley in Pushkar. Another benefit from getting away from overpriced Indian ``spaghettis'' & endless rounds of Foreigner & Neil Young. Made famous by the hit "Choli Ke Peechhe,'' which I understand to mean "What is under your bra?" To which the woman replies "My heart, my heart." For all you fans, here go [some of the lyrics] the lyrics: "koras: kukuk ku kukukukukuk // i: cholii ke piichhe kyaa hai, cholii ke piichhe ? - 2 / chunarii ke niiche kyaa hai, chunarii ke niiche ? / a: ho, cholii me.n dil hai meraa, chunarii me.n dil hai meraa / cholii me.n dil hai meraa, chunarii me.n dil hai meraa / ye dil me.n duu.ngii mere yaar ko, pyaar ko! / i: aah!! // ko: kukuk ku kukukukukuk / i: are, laakho.n diivaane tere, laakho.n diivaane / aashiq puraane tere, aashiq puraane / a: ho, aashiq milaa naa aisaa, ##hmmm## / merii pasa.nd jaisaa ##hmmm## / de dil shahar ye aisaa, kyaa karuu.n kyaa karuu.n / i: hay!! // ko: kukuk ku kukukukukuk / a: resham kaa laha.ngaa meraa, resham kaa laha.ngaa / laha.ngaa hai maha.ngaa meraa, laha.ngaa hai maha.ngaa / laha.ngaa uThaa ke chaluu.n, ghu.NghaT giraa ke chaluu.N / kyaa kyaa bachaa ke chaluu.N raamajii, raamajii / i: hay!! // ko: kukuk ku kukukukukuk / i: are, isako bachaa lo baabuu, is ko bachaa lo / dil me.n chhupaalo baabuu, dil me.n chhupaalo / a: ho, aashiq pa.De hai.n piichhe, {o ho!} / koii idhar ko khii.nche, ##hmmm## ..." (taken from http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~navin/india/songs/isongs/7/724.html ) | |
| [26] Another religious song celebrating the Goddess, this time in just about all her forms at once, from what I can understand. From the sampler *Mata Hum Hain Diwane Tere*. | |