This unusual edition of Flotation Device is devoted to indigenous and traditional musics from around the world. A survey of important recent collections of new and historical recordings of non-Western music wherein we marvel at how closely they connect with the rarified creative and improvised music that comprises our usual weekly fare.
We begin in the PNW with Salish social songs before moving south through Central and South America (with stops in the Andes & Amazon), then across the Atlantic to Africa, with an assortment of vocal, flute & percussion music, much of it now endangered. We then cross the Mediterranean to sample archaic Balkan genres before proceeding eastward across the Central Asian steppes to China, Japan & Korea, where we honor the region’s great classical music traditions alongside some aboriginal singing that seems to anticipate Scelsi & Oliveros. Finally, we circle back to Southeast & South Asia, ending with a newly-excavated gem featuring Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
