Inde - Rajasthan
Musiciens Professonelles Populaires
OCORA C 580044

You can't get enough of a good thing, and this OCORA album is a great supplement to World Network's Music From the Desert Nomads. It has the usual detailed OCORA package booklet with photos and song lyrics in translation. The Langas are on here and so are five other musical families: the Manghaniyar, the Jogi, the Dholi, the Nagarshi, and the Bhopa. There's a wide array of traditional Rajasthani music with flutes, clarinets, lutes, oboes, sitars, viols, etc. The recordings were made in 1972, 1978, and 1993 and they were previously released on LP (OCR81) but the CD adds an additional 24 minutes. The Langas get the lion's share (or tiger's share, since this is India), opening the disc with a haunting double murali (clarinet) solo. (The liner notes tell us the instrument resembles a pungi but it sounds like a bagpipe.) It is accompanied by sarangi (fiddle). The Mangyanihar come from the region around Jaisalmer and are not as socially well-placed as the Langas. They don't have noble patrons so they play for just about anyone, thus their standing in the community is more ambiguous and they are less esteemed. Outstanding is the excerpt from the epic ballad "Amar Singh" (about a devoted wife's suttee) played on the sarangi fiddle and sung by two Jogi. If you liked "Native Son" by Velvet Underground, this is for you! (I am beginning to think John Cale actually knew what he was doing after all.) --Alastair Johnston