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This round-up’s central focus is the Indo-Pak- istani subcontinent’s traditional folk music. Preamble aside, it is a dirty, open wound of a secret that its traditional folk music has been pretty shoddily served at home. With respon- sibilities routinely ‘devolved’ to ‘Johnny For- eigner’ record companies such as Ocora, the UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music, Le Chant du Monde or Lyrichord, where was the Gramophone Company of India or EMI (Pak- istan)’s incentive to issue anything other than commercial or token folk stuff. Com- pounding that, it’s hardly a revelation that the subcontinent’s folk music is like the lay- ers of a gigantic onion. Whether at home or abroad – in the latter case ensembles brought together for overseas tours – tourist folk is but the outermost, flake-off layer of the onion. This batch of recordings takes the paths less trod, the ones hereditary folk musicians take or choose to take once micro- phones are in front of them.
For a number of years the New Delhi- based Beat of India label, founded in 2000, trickle-fed releases of traditional artists of local and regional standing and set new standards. Importantly, Beat of India artists seemed to be on the receiving end, not of India’s age-old, one-off payment shuffle, but of revenue afterwards. (When I compiled The Rough Guide to India (2010), World Music Network licensed a track of the Nath yogi sapera or ‘snake charmer’ Sohan Nath, which meant an unexpected financial wind- fall for a folk musician living on the poverty line.) Two recently founded labels – the Mumbai-based De Kulture Music and the New Delhi-based Amarrass label – are now running with the baton.
Founded in 2005, De Kulture Music attended the WOMEX trade festival in Den- mark in 2011, thereby arriving on the interna- tional scene. According to their catalogue for 2011-12, they had “a portfolio of over 50 albums and 700 tracks from 500 traditional singers and instrumentalists.” Unheard Rajasthan (De Kulture Music DKM-026-A) is an exploration of devotional song of several religious hues. What would have rendered this vocal music more accessible would have been more stranger-friendly and more detailed notes. While Rajasthani is a language with affinities to Northern Indian languages such as Punjabi and Hindi (the latter not the great leveller it is frequently portrayed to be) even in northern India much of the context is going to be unfamiliar. Outside Rajasthan, this is obscure stuff. For example, without explaining Santaram & Group’s Helo Mharo Sambhlo is going to mean little to zilch. It is an entreaty hymning a local deity called Gogaji – more fully (and unexplained), Jahar Veer Gogga, a deified warrior-hero with the knack of dealing with snakes. Likewise, even with the cryptic explanation that bhanwra is “the honeybee that sucks pollen from flowers and how this act causes better half to flare up in ire” does not assist seventeen minutes of listening to Bagan ka Bhanwra. Jeera, a mixed male (Bhopa) and female (Bhopi) praise song to the spice jeera (cumin) won the choice of suggested entry point: Jeera.
Sounds of Punjab (De Kulture Music DKM-033-A) is a fascinating ten-track anthol- ogy of Punjabi instrumental folk music. The notes state that its participants come from Ambala, Amritsar, Fatehpur, Patiala, Sangrur
Meetha Khan and Jan Mohammad Jat – waai music from the Ran of Kutch
and Sirsa. That is, from the north-western Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. The notes specify which “culture group” each act belongs to: Sikh, Muslim Jogi (yogi), unspeci- fied Jogi and Harijan. Harijan meaning ‘Chil- dren of God’ was Gandhi’s obnoxiously patro- nising alternative to Untouchable or Dalit. (Less well-publicised is that Gandhi perpetu- ated the guv’nor ‘ruling castes’ mentality of religion-sanctioned oppression.) Punjab itself has permeable borders, with influxes of man- ual and seasonal workers from neighbouring states. Sounds Of Punjab reflects this beauti- fully. It has music by members of the Kumao, a largely Hindu ethnic group from Uttarak- hand, the state joined to Haryana by a corri- dor; Shaadi Ram and Group contribute instru- mentals combining two tumba (plucked one- or two-string lute) and algoza (double-fipple or internal duct flute). Kashi Nath’s Jogi group’s performance of Chhalla indicates a different kind of porosity that renders unclear where trad begins and trad arr ends (or vice versa). To explain that, the Punjabi superstar Gurdas Maan sang Chhalla at a faster lick in one of Punjabi cinema’s biggest- ever smasheroos, Long Da Lishkara (1986). For hits of the pukka Punjabi stuff on Sounds Of Punjab, try Gyan Singh Memi & Group’s Veen Vaja with its veen (bagpipe), chimta (tongs, typically associated with flipping roti or chapatti breads, with added jingles) and mixed percussion. Or the Narata Ram and Group piece called Sounds Of Dauru – the dauru being a tension drum, though Punjabi talking drum conveys more. A phenomenal sound palette is revealed here. The main weakness is the paucity of information. It may come in a padded, CD-size box but there is little biographical information. A number of listed instruments including matka, vanjali, bhukchu and kato are so recondite they don’t even appear in Alka Pande’s book From Mus-
tard Fields To Disco Lights – Folk Music & Musical Instruments Of Punjab (1999). And song synopses and translations of titles wouldn’t have gone amiss. For example, Chhalla means ‘ring’; but can indicate a mysti- cal / Beyoncé-like ‘crazy in love’. If you are a musician playing bhangra or Punjabi-laced music of any description, believe you me, Sounds Of Punjab is essential listening. Sug- gested entry points: Jugni – Veen Vaja and Sounds Of Dauru.
Kutch is a cultural melting-pot in Gujarat situated as far west as you can travel before falling into the briny. That also means that his- torically it was the region where travellers arrived, moved on from or stayed in and set- tled. Glimpses Of Kutchi Music (De Kulture Music DKM-005-A) is a ten-track compilation providing examples of varying types of Kutchi traditional, tribal and Hindu and Muslim (including the Sindhi Sufi waai transplant) devotional music. Accompanying himself on ravanahatha, Amrut Barot from Gandhidham interprets the popular love story (with a moral) of the bandit Jaisal and Sati Toral, the woman he abducts in a condoned ‘forced- marriage’ sort of way. When a storm hits their boat on the ocean, Jaisal begs her to save him. Instead of just pushing him overboard like any sensible woman she has terms and conditions starting with confession and taking the path of righteousness… Lok Geet sung by Rukhiben Bhupa to dhol accompaniment, on the other hand, is a married girl wishing her brother would come and take her back to her parents and implicitly back to happiness. Sug- gested entry points: Amrut Barot’s Paap Taahro Prakash Jadeja…, Lok Geet and Bal Govind Sharma’s stunning photography.
The Thar or Great Indian Desert is the Sahara or Kalahari Desert of the Indo- Pakistani subcontinent. While popularly
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