Chants et danses des Sioux

 

CHANTS ET DANSES DES SIOUX

SIOUX SONGS AND DANCES 

Anthologie de la Musique des Peuples, 1977, AMP 7 2904

Danièle  Vazeilles was a scholar at the university of Montpellier (France); she went to the USA in order to meet and work on the Plain Indians we call Sioux between 1969 and 1975. Those Native Americans call themselves Lakota meaning ''friendly people''. 
As it is the case for the other albums of this series, D. Vazeilles wrote a presentation text which is useful if you don't know anything about Indian nations. 
She attended rallies known as ''pow wow'' where Indian people can express their unity and take part in their culture through singing and dancing. 
Most of the tracks are war dances (6 out of 13) sung by men and women sometimes. The album starts with the Sioux national anthem expressing Indian fidelity to the American flag despite a tragic history that saw a large indigenous people nearly disappear.  
The sound level is variable at times because of the different places and time of recordings but also because she was not always close to the singers and had to adjust the recording level. 

It was at the time a good way to discover this culture through a French production but  other interesting albums from Canada and the USA have been available since the seventies as well with labels like Canyon Records or Everest for example.

I must say that this is a borrowed album which had two tracks damaged enough; so I replaced them with two other tracks found on Archive.org.
Text in English (and French)

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Musique des Hmong du Laos

 

MUSIQUE DES HMONG DU LAOS

Cour d'Amour et Culte des Ancêtres

HMONG MUSIC FROM LAOS

Love-songs and Ancestor-rites

Anthologie de la Musique des Peuples, 1981, AMP 8.2911

 Before introducing this album I would like to thank you who have visited this blog over the past five years. Yes I started this blog on the 8th of May 2021 a few months before I retire. 
I took inspiration from a few brilliant blogs which gave me the idea to post my own records.
So thanks to you all again !

This second-hand album (but in perfect condition) I bought quite recently is another  item from that French label founded by B. Dupaigne. 
Eric Mareschal stayed with Laotian Hmong  between November 1974 and February 1976.  The Hmong are now scattered over China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. They were originally from China but migrated southwards over the last centuries to escape Chinese Han rule. The text by Mareschal is informative enough about their history.
Most Hmong  people left Laos after the takeover by the Communist Pathet Lao in May 1975 and settled in Thailand. In fact only three tracks out of fifteen were recorded in Laos while the others were recorded in Thailand. Around 5000 Hmong left for France and French Guyana in 1975.
Singing and mouth organ music  predominate; each track is well presented. 
Text in French and English.

Although this is fifty years old  I think that this kind of field recordings help us to remember that diversity be it human, animal or floral is essential to our survival. 
I believe it was Dupaigne's aim to preserve part of this diversity. Mine is to post all the albums by AMP.

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Musiques de l'Île de Pâques

 

MUSIQUES DE L'ÎLE DE PÂQUES 

 MUSIC FROM EASTER ISLAND

 Anthologie de la Musique des Peuples, 1976, AMP 2908

 Another album from that excellent label I borrowed from a library. 
Christos Clair-Vasiliadis went to Easter Island (Rapa Nui in the local language) between 22d of February and 8th of March 1976 and recorded there villagers of different ages. 
Singing is the primary form of expression with dancing while only percussion  instruments are in use traditionally. Of course the guitar found its way to Easter Island to accompany newly composed songs. 
So  we can listen to different types of songs like choral singing, kai kai which is a song for a game with a set of strings manipulated with the fingers to form shapes, love songs, religious songs, songs of thanks, ...
The island ''discovered'' in 1722 has been part of Chile since 1888 but the original people became full Chilean citizens in 1966 only. The number of indigenous inhabitants was roughly 1500 at the time of the recordings plus several hundred ''white'' people. Despite tourism, the main activity on the island which threatens the Pascuans' way of life, traditional music was very alive back then with many new songs with an obvious influence by Polynesian modern music through the formation of folk groups.
A very interesting recording; but once again I didn't copy the English text so I include picture of the cover with part of the English text found on discogs. 

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