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Divine Horsemen: the Voodoo Gods of Haiti

“Divine Horsemen: the Voodoo Gods of Haiti,” Lyrichord. Recorded in
1947 on a wire recorder with the microphone attachted to a post in
the middle of the ceremony by Maya Deren in the filming of her
documentary of the same name. No Hollywood silly business here, this
is the real deal: a trance/possession ceremony where participants are
actually possessed by the Rada Loa (the pantheon of voodoo gods, the
ancient gods of the East African Fon): Deren says, “There are moments
when the voices of the loa can be heard talking and singing on this
recording.” Astonishing and intricate drumming, powerful almost
beyond comprehension; you’ve never heard anything like it. Regards,

Face A
1. Legba
2. Damballah
3. Agwe
4. Erzulie
5. Ogoun
6. Litany
7. Ghede chant

Face B
1. Invocation to azacca
2. Azacca possession
3. Ghede
4. Azacca
5. Congo cult
6. Petro cult
7. Banda dance for ghede
8. Rara festival
9. Mardi gras carnival

all propers to nauma over at black star liners

-

download the video: Maya Deren Divine Horsemen
or watch @guba.com
i couldn’t get sutostart turned off to embed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Horsemen:_The_Living_Gods_of_Haiti_(film)

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1985) is a black and white documentary film about dance and possession in Haitian vodou that was shot by experimental filmmaker Maya Deren between 1947 and 1952 and edited and completed by Deren’s third husband Teiji Ito and his wife Cherel Winett Ito (1947-1999) in 1981, twenty years after Deren’s death. Most of the film consists of images of dancing and bodies in motion during rituals in Rada and Petro services.

Deren had studied dance as well as photography and filmmaking. She originally went to Haiti with the funding from a Guggenheim fellowship and the stated intention of filming the dancing that forms a crucial part of the vodou ceremony.

The film that resulted, however, reflected Deren’s increasing personal engagement with vodou and its practitioners (Wilcken, 1986). While this ultimately resulted in Deren disregarding the guidelines of the fellowship, Deren was able to record scenes that probably would have been inaccessible to other filmmakers.

Deren’s original notes, film footage, and wire recordings are in the Maya Deren Collection at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archive Research Center

http://animalbehaviorarchive.org

The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is the world’s largest natural sound and video archive of animal behavior. Its mission is to collect and preserve recordings of each species’ behavior and natural history and to make them available for research, education, conservation, zoos and aquaria, wildlife managers, publishers, the arts, and both public and commercial media. Since 1930, recordists of all backgrounds have contributed their recordings, which now number to several hundred thousand in total. A large percentage of the recordings can be searched and played online. The Library also provides services for consultation, custom compilations, and professionally edited versions of its assets.

Michael Prime – L-Fields

The sound materials used on this CD are derived from bioelectrical recordings of living plants and fungi. All living things possess electrical fields which fluctuate according to the physical or mental state of the organism, as well as to solar, lunar and other cycles. The tiny voltages produced by the plants were amplified and used as control signals for battery-powered oscillators, recorded in situ. Environmental sounds from the locations where the plants were growing were also used in the compositions. I chose to use hallucinogenic plants as subjects because of their long history of interaction with humans, and because of the large amount of music that has apparently been influenced by their usage. I thought it was time to let the natural rhythms of the plants themselves be heard.

Track 1: Cannabis sativa and environment recorded in Brussels, August 1998.
Track 2: Amanita muscaria and environment recorded in Honor Oak, November 1997.
Track 3: Lophophora williamsii and environment recorded in Orpington, February 1999.

http://www.sonoris.org

many thanks to enborRa

greg davis & sebastien roux – paquet surprise

Their love of sound brought them together. The Atlantic Ocean kept them apart. Until now…

After over a year of internet exchanges of ideas and sounds, Parisian Sebastien Roux and Vermonter Greg Davis decided to put their love to the test. Combining their interests in psychedelic music, digital processing, folk, sunshine pop, musique concrete, ethnic sounds, drones and field recordings, Sebastien (who works at the famed computer music institution IRCAM) and Greg (who holds two degrees in music and composition) have created a dynamic musical journey full of joy and surprises. Whether it’s large rocks being thrown into a stream, Sebastien singing or Greg playing the double mijwiz, diverse sound worlds come together in this “surprise package”. Open it and enjoy! – Carpark

Personnel: Greg Davis (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, autoharp, recorder, Farfisa, glockenspiel, electric bass, kalimba, percussion, gong, computer); Sebastien Roux (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, vibraphone, kalimba, computer).

Additional personnel: Steven Hess (percussion).

http://www.carparkrecords.com
http://www.autumnrecords.net

http://www.myspace.com/sebastienrouxmusic
http://www.myspace.com/gregdavismusic

mountains – s/t

Mountains is an ongoing collaboration between Apestaartje cofounders Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp. Having worked in parallel and often overlapping contexts within their respective solo projects (Aero & Anderegg), ‘Mountains’ was initially created as an outlet for live performance. After numerous performances they decided it was time to document the experience and this their debut album was born. Four lengthy pieces composed around acoustic instrumentation and field recordings gradually blend with subtle electronics and live sampling to create an extremely dynamic and detailed listening experience that ranges from quiet crackling to dense layers of harmonic texture. Psychedelia, Americana and classical Minimalism are just a few of the genres referenced in this epic suite of resonant frequencies. “infinite sheets of grainy sound build and renew themselves to immensely pleasing effect.” – The Wire

http://www.staartje.com

echoes of nature – american wilds:the natural sounds of the wilderness

Relax with natural sounds from America’s wilderness. Eagles, Ioons, ravens, elk,
rain, thunder, songbirds, ducks, frogs, cicadas, crickets and wolves
offer a sample of many of the most beautiful sounds of nature all woven together.
Recording (C) 1992 Kim Wilson
(P) 1993 Delta Music Inc

the blithe sons – waves of grass

For the Blithe Sons’ second recording, Waves of Grass (2001), Loren Chasse and Donaldson hauled a portable Casio SK-1, a couple of little nine volt amps, melodica, a guitar and some bells deep into the confines of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, to make a quiet recording outdoors, with the wind coursing through branches and squawking seagulls audible amidst The Blithe Sons’ pastoral dronings – The Wire

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Blithe+Sons
http://www.3acrefloor.com/jewelled-antler.htm
http://www.23five.org/lchasse

daisuke miyatani – diario

Daisuke Miyatani lives on the Awaji Island in Japan and usually works in a bookshop. Maybe that is where he finds the rest and silence to create his fragile compositions. Or it is his Japanese cultural background that leads to the calm, haiku-like miniatures.
Daisuke establishes a reduced and minimal approach mostly based on guitars, accompanied by xylophones and other instruments. The songs have an open character, with a lot of silence, and repetition. These elements are contrasted with more ambient-like, electronically composed material. Hence the album is a fruitful interplay between constant atmospheres and point-like acoustic notes. Most of the songs include fieldrecordings which are rather subtle, underlying. All the electronic elements still have an annalog character, fitting with the dominating acoustic instruments.
“Diario” establishes a warm and calm atmosphere and yet avoiding to be a trivial album. The techniques of minimalism, repetition, integration of concrete sounds, electro-acoustic combination are all used in a very discrete way. The result is an interesting album very comfortable to listen to.
He has released several works on different, mostly Japanese labels. There are definitely parallels to Yuichiro Fujimoto’s work, who also releases on Ahornfelder.

http://www.ahornfelder.de

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