LUZMILA CARPIO
''a people that doesn't sing is a dead people''
Ocora Radio France, 1988, 558 700
Some of the LPs published by Ocora have not been reissued surprisingly. This album by L. Carpio is one of them. She's a singer and charango player from the Quechua people in Bolivia. She was born in 1954 near Potosi and started her career in 1971 at a radio station in Oruro. Like numerous other artists in Bolivia and Peru she considers herself as a fighter for Indian and women's rights. She was ambassador in France in 2006 sent by Evo Morales.
What strikes us is the way she's able to sing very high : this is part of Andean esthetics in music; women sing that way on the altiplano. She is joined by 2 more female singers and 2 singers and musicians. The kena and the charango are mostly used. The songs are either traditional or composed by Carpio always in Quechua. This is not 'the 'South American'' music we used to know from the 70's with Los Incas and Los Calchakis for example but the expression of a whole people with deep roots in spite of 5 centuries of white-metis domination.
Many Many thanks Herve!!! - Some of the LPs published by Ocora have not been reissued surprinsingly. - yes...it is a unique recording!!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome again Leonidas !
DeleteThank you so much Herve, this album is great! Probably the best one I've heard from her so far ;-)! It is indeed odd that it has never been reissued, considering that Ocora has re-pressed almost their entire repertoire by famous traditional musicians over the years. But I think this adds even more to the uniqueness of this album anyway, haha!
ReplyDeleteYes it's amazing that Ocora left a good deal of their production behind. More of them are on the way here. So I'm glad to see that this kind of music is still appreciated and sought after. I think I have some recordings of her from Bolivia that are very good too. But I have to check and I'll give you the detail.
DeleteThanks for your following.
So do you know about LUZMILA CARPIO/YUYAY JAP'INA TAPES by Almost Musique ? it's a French production in fact issued in 2013 and remastered.
DeleteI don't know much about it and havent heard the album myself either, but I do also think it's quite odd that it was released on Almost Musique. I took a look at their catalog and they never released any other traditional music album besides this one. As far as I know (I may presumably be wrong), the record is just a compilation of previously released rare recordings. With that in mind, maybe the label somehow got these special recordings on hand and saw it as an opportunity to publicize them out to a wider audience? Not sure. Other than that, I can only say that the album was reissued by the north-american label Squirrel Thing in 2015.
DeleteBy the way, I would like to take this opportunity to say that your work on this blog has been fantastic so far, I've been having a lot of fun exploring the stuff you've posted here! :) Keep it up!
Yes I think those tapes were made in Bolivia or somewhere else and compiled for Almost Musique. You can listen to it on Bandcamp https://bandcamp.com/tag/luzmila-carpio where we can see the original tapes which were the material for the compilation.
DeleteI don't know whether my work on this blog is fantastic but your appreciation will cheer me up for a good while for sure !