It’s been an age since I posted, mostly because I was on Maui over New Years, unplugged for the most part and not at all inclined to blog.
So I’ll ease back into it, with some music to start of your new year. While on Maui I bought a bunch of slack key guitar records by the likes of Sonny Lim and George Kahumoku Jr. Slack key guitar is a Hawai’ian style that originated with the Mexican paniolo cowboys that helped establish ranching in the early 20th century across the Hawai’ian islands. These dudes brought their Mexican cowboy guitar styles, and left them in the hands of Hawai’ians who started messing with the tuning by slacking keys and playing in open tunings. After that, stylistic innovations followed with a rhythm line kept on the lower three strings and the melody plucked out of the high strings.
As I was travelling with family, I didn’t get to hear much of this music live, but we did catch one performance at a hula in Ka’anapali with a great young slack key player whose name escapes me. To give you a sense of this laid back and lovely style of music, here’s an mp3 by slack key masters George Kuo and Barney Isaacs (who is playing slide) from their album Hawaiian Touch.
Aloha!
PS…for more great streaming island sounds, with a preponderance of “Jawaiian” reggae sounds combined with some hula, slack key and traditional stuff, tune into the Maui’s local radio station now online at KPOA.com. Make sure you tune in on Fridays especially to hear the repeated playings of “Aloha Friday (full mp3)” and dig the other novelty numbers such as Kupa’Aina’s “Overload on Automation (m3u clip)” and High Risk Factor’s too-serious-it’s-funny “Chillaxin’ (mp3 clip)” song.
Getting near Christmas, and I love the sacred music that gets sung at this time of year. Although this track isn’t Christmas music, it is from the Ukranian Orthodox Christian tradition, and is a haunting and meditative chant. This is from a fine site of russian orthodox music and information.
This is an Antiphon, chanted text that is sung in a servics, often in a planisong setting.
Friday, and time for another mp3 posting. This one is in honour of the fact that yesterday I was promoted to brown belt, which in my tae kwon do training is two belts below black.
So to celebrate, here is a solo track played on a Korean flute called a Dae Geum. I love the way this instrument cracks like a trumpet or a sax. I don’t know if there is a reed involved or how the mechanics of it work, but it adds to the despairing feel of the piece. It reminds me of how much martial arts there is to learn.
This is from a site of Korean meditation music.
Drop dead gorgeous Norwegian song, for a day in which the snow is blowing and the fireplace is the most inviting place to be.
Something soft to go with the rain that is falling today on the west coast of Canada. I know little about this piece other than it appears on a compilation called “Below Code” from Japanese label Comatones Records of 10 years of mix tapes. Comatones describes itself as “dedicated to the production and dissemination of non-categorical contemporary electronic music.” The whole album is a fascinating listen.