Crazy mixed-up whirled mix, ABC RN

Sunday night on ABC Radio National, as part of The Night Air 8.35pm AEST
(rpt broadcast: midnight, Saturday 1st March - or 12am Sunday 2nd March, if you prefer)

AFTER IMPERIAL MONO-CULTURE, beyond the limit of maps: vintage pop & soundtracks from Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Poland, Czech & Slovakia, Croatia, Egypt, Iran, India, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Chile & points inbetween thereof...

Denizalti Ruzgarlan Okay Temiz
45: Yonca Plak YCAS-076

... super-fine Turkish moog funk from this percussionist, composer & instrument builder extraordinaire. Recorded in 1974; later re-issued on (Turkish expat) Ilhan Mimaroglu's Finnadar label.

Is there life on the earth? (Makavejev/Hadzijakis) Anne Lonnberg
Sweet Movie OST CD (Lyra 1152)

... recurring freak/libertarian musical motif, from this monsterpiece of '70s Euro art/porn cinema.

Podatij Mi Troche Slonca Bemibem
Bemowe frazy LP (Muza SXL 1013)

... the Polish jazz/funk/prog scene has been the subject of avid collector attentions for a while now. This one is amazing for the way the female wordless vocals meander in a heterophony around the horn lines. I first discovered this track thru the "East of Cosmic" mixes of DJ Slobodan, from Belgrade's youth/opposition radio station B92.

??? Unknown song (Bazant/Hala/Malasek) Jirina Bohdalova & chorus
Dama Na Kolejich OST (unreleased)

... an unreleased track from the score of this 1966 Iron Curtain feminist pop-musical. Contrary to Western propaganda & historical myopia, the Iron Curtain produced some of the world's most colourful & creative popular cinema. The lyric explores that abiding conflict of the socialist "new woman": how to be feminine, & attract a mate, after a hard day on the factory floor.

Phonomorphia III (Detoni) Acezantez
Jugoslav Avant-Garde Music LP (Philips 6521 028)

... still largely unknown in the West, the Croatian composer Dubravko Detoni was a champion of post-WW2 modernism in his native Yugoslavia; after stints in the experimental studios at Warsaw, Paris & Darmstadt, Detoni was closely involved with the Zagreb Biennale of contemporary music, and performing music with the live electroacoustic ensemble, Acezantez. He continues to perform & record to this day.

??? music (edit) Kurt Grieder?
Samac OST (unreleased)

... the work of Zagreb Film re-defined creative animation in the 1950s & '60s; Samac (Eng: Alone) is generally considered to be the film that launched the new Zagreb style internationally (after its screening at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival). Music credit goes to Kurt Grieder, but I suspect this early electronic pop has been "borrowed" from another source - Grieder's score for a 1962 animation by the same Director, Mala Kronika (Eng: Everyday Chronicle), is constructed from an elaborate remix of the Forbidden Planet soundtrack!

Title Music (edit) Zdenek Liska
Ovoce stromu rajskych jime OST (unreleased)

... more unreleased soundtrack music, again from Czech, this time by the long-standing collaborator of the animator, Jan Svankmajer. The chorus translates in English as "tell me the truth". Both this, and the previous film (Sedmikrasky, Eng: Daisies, see below) by Director Chytilova, represent a singular pinnacle of international cinema - recommended!


Abgad Hawaz (???) Laila Morad
Laila Morad, Volume 2 LP (Soutelphan GSTP 54)

... stomping Egyptian jazz. Lovin' that tap-dance breakdown! I always had this one figured as being from a soundtrack (see below: Ghazl il banat of 1949) - what is immediately apparent is just how restrained the image is, in comparison to the wild, up-tempo music.

Chee ro bavar konam (???) Googoosh
The Best of Googoosh Vol. 5: Kavir (Caltex Records CD 2047)

... Googoosh is the most prominent pop vocalist from Iran, with a career spanning from the 1960s into the present. She works across both traditional Persian & contemporary Western styles. I've also seen the title of this track transliterated to English as Chiro bavir konam.

Title Music Rahul Dev Burman
Teesri Manzil OST LP (EMI 3AEX-5109)

... RD 'Pancham' Burman is probably the defining composer of the archetypal "Bollywood" musical style - a 'masala' of different genres, instrumental voices, rhythms, melodies & time signatures - achieving a colourful accomodation of traditional Indian & contemporary Western pop music styles...

Baithen Hain Kya Uske Pas (S D Burman/Majrooh; arr. R D Burman) Asha Bhosle
Jewel Thief OST LP (EMI 3AEX-5146)

... his father, Sachin Dev Burman, remains for many listeners (native Hinds, especially) the most important composer of Subcontinental cinema's "Golden Age". Sometimes, tho', he enlisted his son to help him chart more modern styles.

I want your love (Hendricks; arr. Qi) Grace Chang
The Age of Shanghainese Pops 1930-1970 CD (EMI/Pathe 724353094324)

... fiery vocal athletics from the gorgeous 'Ge Lan' Chang, as accomplished an actress as she was a musician. Ge Lan was the first Canto-pop singer to achieve popular success in Western territories, recording an LP for Capitol in the late 1950s. This style of East Asian jazz has a long and ambiguous legacy, hailing back to the nationalist period between the world wars.

Unwilling Heart (???) Ros Sereysothea
Ros Sereysothea's Collection 02 CD (Khmer Rocks no no.)

... smouldering torch-jazz from Sereysothea, perhaps the most prominent female singer of '60s & '70s Khmer pop & jazz styles (& with quite a few soundtrack credits as well). I have a definite love for the tonal languages of SE Asia - killer!

Cabaret Tragico theme (Esquivel) Columba Dominguez
Cabaret Tragico OST LP (RCA Victor MKL 1088)

... early work from Juan Garcia Esquivel, for this Mexican nightclub noir. All the trademark Esquivel motifs are already in evidence - the wild dynamic flux (quieter vocal parts going into bombastic horn charts), wordless chorus, Alvino Rey's electric guitar twang. Somewhere, I have an RD Burman soundtrack where the choir is all over that 'zu-zu' wordless thing - an indication of just how widely the Esquivel style was admired & imitated.

El derecho de vivir en paz Victor Jara
El Derecho De Vivir En Paz CD (WEA CD 8573 87606-2)

... the great Chilean folk-singer Jara, with what is perhaps his signature: "they deserve to live in peace" - and a sentiment that informed this selection of music.

We remember: Khmer musics

... It was un-proud Australian journalist, John Pilger, who initially alerted international citizens to the horrors of the Cambodian killing fields. Pilger defines his professional mission as a "guardian of the public memory", invoking these words of Milan Kundera: "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

The Maoist political program of Pol Pot had a very different intention; it sought to erase the past - to declare a revolutionary 'tabula rasa': Year Zero. To that end, books and ancient texts were burned, buildings were levelled, and vast human populations were murdered.

3 decades later, and history has liquidated Pol Pot - if not his memory, or that of the atrocities he visited on his fellow citizens. Now the task of recovering the history of Khmer culture has enlisted humans from about the globe; 1 of my favourite is DJ bUMp, of Defective Records. He's been kind enough to send me a copy of the Cambodian Psych-Out complication... My colleague, Sokha Suy, is going to do a little translation for him.

Mr bUMp relates that several luminaries of the Khmer pop scene were involved in the Royal Orchestra, so for yr delectations I'm posting this LP: UNESCO Collection Musical Sources/Art Music from South-East Asia IX-3 Royal Music of Cambodia...

"This record is dedicated to those magnificent artists, the royal dancers and musicians of Cambodia" - Jacques Brunot, January 1970. Download it here.

The music bears analogy to Javanese and Balinese Gamelan, but is closer in style to the traditions of Malaysia and Thailand. Wonderfully melifluous, and supported by a female choir who sing in a language which is essentially devoid of the harsh guttural consonants of Anglo-Saxon dialects. Recorded on the eve of the coup which would depose Norodom Sihanouk, the palace orchestra employs antique instruments tuned to a traditional scale, and the choir has been augmented to reflect its size at the beginning of the 20th century. A little over 5 years later, and all those instruments and most of the musicians, singers and dancers were 'liquidated' by Pol Pot & his crew.

There is something of an irony that these recordings were made by UNESCO: Cambodia is the only nation to have suffered an embargo on UN aid & assistance. Instead, food & medicine were directed to the Khmer Rouge militia of Citizen #1, in accordance with the strategic interests of the Western democracies.

Cambodian musicians were recording extraordinary pop and psychedelic music in the late '60s and early '70s - music which reflected their indigenous traditions, but made ample accomodations to the alien influence of Western culture. Those unique stylings are enjoying a revival through several documentaries and a succession of CD compilations...