From: "William W. Schonbein" Hello everyone First, a while back there was some talk about the 'ethiopiques' series on Buda Musique out of france. I unfortunately ignored it at the time, but now, having discovered the series - wow!
Surely this has already been mentioned several times, but ETHIOPIQUES VOLUME 11, Alemu Aga's "Harp of King David", is superb, cosmic, bottomless, spiritual stuff. He plays this large vertical many-stringed harp called the beguena (sic), which makes a viscous buzzing thrum, and half-sings-half-whispers, murmurs these songs softly into a mic that must be millimeters from his mouth: the effect is mesmerizing. To me (of course) most/all of the songs sound almost identical, with the same intervals/notes even, but that isn't really the point. Some of the most wonderful stuff to fall asleep or wake up to. Apparently Peter Kowald bent over backwards to find this before it was reissued (??) by the Ethiopiques series; this makes _total sense_. Holy shit, that good. ----s np: Derek Bailey and Min Tanaka, MUSIC AND DANCE nr: Robert Palmer, DEEP BLUES justsaw: Stan Brakhage retrospective on celluloid..."Panels for the Walls of Heaven" made me shout at the screen...texture-ecstasy, mandatory viewing for music lovers