Gondwana

 

Gond Ceremonial Group, 11x14, ink on paper, 2020

A fun byproduct of illustrating these various peoples from all different places of the world is that I'm learning all sorts of trivia about these peoples. The Gond, mainly of Madhya Pradesh in India, were believed to have once ruled Gondwana. Most people know Gondwana as a supercontinent that existed millions of years ago, but there was also a Gondwana in India. The supercontinent, from the Jurassic epoch, a time long before humans existed, was actually named after the Indian Gondwana. Another interesting piece of trivia is how marriages are arranged among the Gond. If a woman becomes a widow she would marry the closest bachelor from the husband related side. The practice is observed to this day. The Gond are pretty well assimilated into the modern Indian economy so it may happen that a young urban professional is married to his aunt who is 40 years his senior. The song in the top 100 is only identified as Gond Song on The Columbia World Library of Folk& Primitive Music, Vol. 12: India it is found on, was recorded in 1952, a time perhaps, when they were much less assimilated into modern life, when India was still a British colony. The sound of the song sure is very far removed from western as well as Indian popular music of the 1950s.

I had fun drawing a group, instead of usual individual. I could explore rhythmic mark making. I'm thinking already about next year's concept even though this year's isn't even half way finished yet. The exhibition of the Top 100 2021 is already scheduled to take place in Dublin, Ohio during the summer of 2022 even though the work for it has not started yet. The works on 14x11 paper that I'm working on right now will exhibited during the spring of next year in my own The Top Archive and Studio space.

 

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth, pencils and spray paint on paper, 11x14, 2020

The same recording of Shaking Hell from the 1983 Confusion is Sex LP was also featured in last year's 100. I learned about the song however watching the film Rock My Religion by Dan Graham. It was Graham, a friend of Kim Gordon, who commissioned the song for inclusion in the film. The image I chose to work from was an image by that in my mind best represented the four individuals in the band (from left to right): Steve Shelley; Thurston Moore; Lee Ranaldo; Kim Gordon. The photo taken by Chris Carroll was used in Rolling Stone Magazines and is much more recent than the recording of Shaking Hell. The drummer in heard in the recording is Jim Sclavunos, who was a member only briefly in 1983. Steve Shelley joined in 1985. Vocals on the recording are by Kim Gordon.

Lola Kiepja

Lola Kiepja, pencil on paper, 14x11 inches, 2020

Lola Kiepja was about 90 years old when she died in October of 1966. She had survived her two husbands, all of her nine children and most of her grandchildren as well. She actually survived most all of her people, the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego, and was, in 1965 and 1966 when ethnologist Anne Chapman befriended and recorded her, the only surviving member who knew their language and customs. Lola Kiepja was, like mother and maternal grandfather, a shaman who had been instructed on the secrets of Selk'nam mythology. She had been born just before the onslaught of disease, fracticide, and a genocide had reduced the numbers of Selk'nam from about 4,000 to about 300 in just a few decades. Anne Chapman recorded 92 chants by Kiepja, The Guanaco Myth Chant, one of Kipeja's favorites, was recorded more than once and featured in last year's top 100 as well as this year's. The myth (and lyrics to the chant) goes as follows:

I am about to die. Bury me in the white earth (where the guanacos often sleep and rub their backs to rid themselves of vermin) but do not bury me deep in the earth, leave my head and shoulders free. After I die you must perform tachira (the mourning rite) and as you are going away singing of your grief, a man will approach you. He will look exactly like me but he will not be me. He will ask to make love to you, do as he says.

"When he died the daughters did just as their father had ordered. As they walked away, while they were still singing the lament, the father jumped out of his grave, hot with desire to make love to his daughters. He sniffed their tracks and chased wildly after them, urinating as he ran (as if he had already been metamorphosed into a guanaco). When he caught up to them he said: "I am the one your father told you about. Come let us make love." One of his daughters ran on. When he made love to the other both became transformed into guanacos." [Anne Chapman, The End of the World, Buenos Aires, 1988]

A guanaco, a camelid related to the Llama, was a main food staple of the Selk'nam. Check here for more information and other portrait paintings of Lola Kiepja.

Yekuana Revisited

Medicine Woman of the Yekuana People (from Los juegos de la Yekuana)

Tawaniwechi is a second track from Music of the Venezuelan Yekuanan Indians [Folkways, 1975] in this year's list. This particular recording of a Yekuana shaman, the last on the record, was not recorded by neither musicologist listed in the credits on the record, but is rather a historic recording from 1912 by the German anthropologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg. Walter Coppens, Barbara Brandli, and Jean Francois Nothomb, who recorded all other music on the collection decided to include the old wax cylinder recording for historical context. In the recording made in Nauakuna in the South of Venezuela, a shaman is heard using the voice of the spirit Tawani. Even though Tawani is a defunct spirit, the voice of Tawani, invoked in this recording, sounds much like it did one hundred years later as can be witnessed in the film Los juegos de los Yekuana by Enrique Blein. The image above is based on a still from the film.

Two New Ink Drawings

Topoke line dance, 11 x 14, ink on paper, 2020

I've completed two new ink drawings this week. Both represent seconds, musicians or peoples I already painted for this year's top 100. The two drawings represent numbers 39 & 40 in the Top 100 2020. For more information on the Topoke people I encourage you to watch the video chronicling the previous Topoke drawing from earlier this year. The link to it can be found here. The second Topoke track in the list is a mourning song sung by women, the second Nina Simone track in the list is Sinnerman and comes from the album Pastel Blues.

 Nina Simone, 14 x 11, ink on paper, 2020

Thelonious Mingus

Charles Mingus, ink on paper, 2020

 

My appreciation for certain jazz musicians active in the 1960s never wanes. In the midst of exploring new musical styles, eras, and geographic locations the old jazz favorites, such as Mingus and Monk, never cease to impress me. A Rolling Stone article Wynton Marsalis on 12 Essential Jazz Recording introduced me to this recording of Meditations on Integration made in Oslo in 1964. Flutist Eric Dolphy had just informed Mingus he was going to stay behind in Europe and the two of them have a little conversation on stage before starting the song. Mingus asks Dolphy how long he is planning to stay in Europe, a poignant exchange as Dolphy dies just a few months later. The approach of the drawing reminded me of how I did a series of Jazz drawings for the Top 100 of 1999, the first one of many that was exhibited publicly. The local Columbus newspaper The Other Paper chose Thelonious Monk to feature the cover of their events section. 

Thelonious Monk, The Other Paper, 2000

I Light the Fire

Sivugun und Nunana, 11x14 inches, 2020

Pic-eine'rkin is a form of throat singing related to the katajjait of the Canadian Inuits and the Rehbuhkara of the Japanese Ainu people. Not many recordings of Pic-eine'rkin exist as the form is near extinct. Until two year ago I've only read about it but then I found some videos on OPOS (Open Planet of Sound), a Swiss research institute, that featured the ensemble Kiighwyak, a Chukchi group recorded in 1991 and 1993 in Sireniki in the extreme eastern part of Siberia. One of the videos ended up as #10 in the Top 100 2019 (here's a link.) Sivugun and Nunana are two elderly Chukchi women who also performed in these videos. They were once part of the Kiighwyak Ensemble but retired. Recently I found more pic-eine'rkin recordings: Three examples of pic-eine'rkin appear on La Voz Humana en la musica, parte I, a project by the scholar Carlos Reynoso. Reynoso had pulled the recordings from The Russian Far North, a source that I have not been able to track down. There are no data for the recordings of which I Light the Fire appears at #36 in the Top 100 2020. The above drawing was completed over the course of four days, incessantly scribbling my way through.

Bunun Music

 Bunun Men

Taiwan was in the news headlines just this morning for their success in tackling COVID-19. Yesterday marked 200 days without a new infection reported. The country is seen as a model to follow in how to deal with a pandemic. The Bunun (Vunun on the record) are one of the largest groups of indigenous peoples on the island and are known for their polyphonic music. The are two examples of such music on The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. 11: Japan, The Ryukyus, Formosa and Korea. The two songs Marisitomal and Pisila-Railas are hard to distinguish on the record as a whole bunch of songs are grouped together. In history the Bunun are known as fierce warriors and head hunters. (Without knowing I seem to select music from such tribes for this year's Top 100.)

Willem Breuker

 Willem Breuker

And here's one from the home country. It doesn't happen too often that my Top 100 list features Dutch music. It's been a while! Willem Breuker (1944-2010) used the traditional Dutch "draaiorgel" (barrel organ) for his Psalm 64. The recording appears on Lunchconcert for Three Barrel Organs on the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) label that he founded in the mid-sixties together with Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg. The LP is from 1966 and it's the first one he recorded under his own name. The 64 in the title does not relate to the year 1964 but is a psalm number (he may have composed the music in 1964 though.) The drawing is done with just pencil, an accumulation of several frantic hours of mark making. Like all of the Top 100 2020, the work is on 11x14 inch paper. 

Maybe Mental

Batak krijgers met speren Tropen Museum

The title of this post suggests I'd be illustrating a song by a band with that name from Phoenix, Arizona. They're really great, I love that band,  (I'm listening to their LP Music for Dreaming as I write this) but no, they didn't make it into the Top 100 2020. The title above, rather, signifies my own bouts with mental illness. During a random web browsing session (on Reddit, of all places) I came across an image, a portrait, created by a patient of a psychiatric institute. Immediately I could empathize and identify with the maker of this portrait. I thought this portrait was the best I've seen if it comes to current activities within the medium of drawing. Looking at this drawing caused me to self-reflect, to wonder why I was so attracted to this drawing, why this drawing, of all of the hundreds of drawings I've seen in the past weeks, stood out to me as being real. The drawing reminded me of drawings I had done in the past during states of utterly despair, utter drunkenness, or utter whatever, drawings that in retrospect belong to my drawings I cherish most. The drawing made me realize I was one of them too. How I've worked so hard to be considered normal, fitting in into the world of contemporary art, how I rationalized works I've made, how I pretended, over the years, to be a voice of academic endeavors that came to define my identity. But I ignored those aspects that were off in this picture, that didn't fit my manufactured existence, aspects that really make me the person I am. Looking back at some works from my past, I recognize things I was ashamed of, embarressed, but some of these things represented me as I am, no matter how I rejected them. A few days ago, when I wrote about the Sakalava spear thrower, I derided myself for the image I selected to draw. What happened next was that I again selected an image of a spear thrower, again somewhat too exotic, out of context (from a different time) than the music I was representing. There are two sides to one's identity: what you think of what's right, and what you feel. What one feels is really not in accordance to how one perceives themselves. Experience doesn't accord to knowledge very well. You experience the world to be flat but you know for a fact it's round. 

The song, btw, I'm illustrating here is called Ile Ile, performed by Ropaoen Batoebare, recorded by Raden Suwanto in 1950 on the Island of Sumatra. Rapaoen Batoebare belongs to the Batak people. The album the song appeared on is Music from Indonesia on Folkways.

Madagascar

 Kanusiky-Sakalava of Morondova (after Dr. A. Voltzkow)

Photographs from the 1939 Clerisse expedition to Madagascar shows most people wearing regular Western style clothing (introduced by French colonists I presume). The photograph of a Kanusiky-Sakalava tribesman I used was taken in 1901, thirty-eight years before the expedition that yielded Homage to the King featured in the Top 100 2020. While usually I'm very conscientious about this sort of thing I must admit I've fallen for an inappropriate form of exoticism. Not only should I have settled for an image from the Clerisse Expedition, I also managed to search for an image by the wrong tribe. The track Homage to the King is coupled (on the record The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. 2: French Africa) with a recording of the Sakalava people but the former is actually recorded by the Ambilube [sic]. On the other hand Homage to the King references a time from before the French colonization in 1883, when the island was the Kingdom of Madagascar. Today, searching for these ethnic groups (Ambilube and Sakalava and others), the names don't even show up because the people of Madagascar are pretty much homogeneous and referred to as Malagasy. There are different ethnic identities among the Malagasy but there's hardly any tribalism. The ancestry of the Malagasy is curiously enough closer related to the people of Indonesia than to those of the African continent. 

Worried Shoes

Daniel Johnston

"I took my lucky break and I broke it in two" is how Daniel Johnston started his 1983 recording Worried Shoes. The line is just one of many unforgettable one-liners in the oeuvre of the late Daniel Johnston. Worried Shoes, the highest of ten of his songs in my all-time list of 500, reappears as a sort of tribute in this year's Top 100. Daniel Johnston died on September 11th 2019, a month into the Top 100 2020 year. I remain a big fan.

Africa Dances

Cover of Africa Dances

 

Ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts (1936-2009) was an important figure in the popularization of African and Latin-American music in Europe and America. Through his record label Original Records world music became widely available. Some of the first world music in my collection are from this label including Africa Dances that I bought about thirty years ago and still occasionally play. The track Smodern was early on a favorite and when playing the record last year it still stood out as a most exciting track. The compilation record (from 1973) featured many future stars of African pop as well as names already established on the continent. The artists listed as performers, however, have a question mark after their name Miss Smodern. There is no information on the group or song to be found on-line and the only information is the brief introduction in the liner notes written by Roberts that identifies the music as Township Jazz. John Storm Roberts (I believe) recorded all music.

Yaqui Deer Dance

Yaqui Deer Dance Performer

The collection called Anthology of Central and South American Indian Music on Folkways [1975] yielded a number of recordings nominated for inclusion of the Top 100 2019. At number 31 a song called Deer Dance was the only one to make it in though. This intriguing recording of Yaqui male singers with rasping sticks and water drums was made by Henrietta Yurchenco in Mexico in 1952. Only much later I checked out the original 1952 album it was included on: Indian Music of Mexico: Seri/Cora/Yaqui/Huichol/Tzotzil. It provided the recording with much more context. Later yet, in preparation to create an illustration for it, I became further acquainted with the Deer Dance ceremony and with the Yaqui. Yurchenco wrote in 1952: "the original Yaqui cultural pattern has largely disappeared with very few either material or spiritual elements remaining." Yet in 2020 there is ample of information to be found online, mostly of the Yaqui people of Arizona in the US. The Yaqui who performed this ceremony in front of Henrietta Yurchenco in 1952 were living along the Yaqui River in the state of Sonora south of the US border in Mexico. The Deer Dance is still widely performed today.

 

World: 35M, Nunavut 0

Katajjait singing

Much of the the Top 100 2020 comes from regions barely affected by the global COVID-19 epidemic. More than a month after I painted the previous Inuit entry, the numbers for Nunavut (the Canadian Inuit Province) remain at zero. The katajjait vocal style features two women singing/breathing into each other's mouths so their voices resonate. Needless to say that COVID-19 would easily spread in the process. Nunavut is the location with most recordings in this top 100 followed by the Solomon Islands. I just read in the news today that the Solomon Islands recorded their first case of COVID-19. Maria and I both work in public spaces in a city where the virus is spreading rapidly. I thought it would be wise to get ourselves tested which we did today: the results came back negative. The song illustrated is a Qiarpaa, a variation of the katajjaq genre that really are considered games rather than music. This particular example from the collection Canada: Jeux Vocaux Des Inuit was performed by Issumartarjuak and Watuak and recorded by Roman Pelinski at Eskimo Bay.

Piaroa (2)

Bark Horns of the Piaroa, charcoal on paper, 11x14 inches, 2020

 

Chant funebre de femmes

 Hugo Zemp, 14x11 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

Top 100 2020, #23 Chant funebre de femmes, Koleo from Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal. [Ocora, 1994] Recorded by Hugo Zemp, 1990.

Mathangi and Kala

 Mathangi Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) with her mother Kala Pragasam

11x14 inches, pencil, spray paint, watercolor on paper, 2020

 

 

In 2019 M.I.A. received an MBE for her services to music. Prince William was the one who handed it to her during a ceremony which her mother was one of the guests of honor. Her mother had stitched the actual award medal to the ribbon M.I.A. was given. As a refugee she had found work sowing for the royal family and had created similar award ribbons for 33 years. In the photo she took with her mom at the ceremony M.I.A. proudly poses with her mom now wearing the MBE award the had stitched herself. The M.I.A. song in the Top 100 2019 is again Born Free as she performed it live at Letterman's Late Show in 2010. A memorable performance featuring Marin Rev, who in 1977 created the beat heard sampled behind the studio version of Born Free (Maya, 2010) together with Alan Vega. The song is at a solid #2 in my list of counting awarded points kept updated since 1983.

Infanticide

Woman preparing the mesh for manioc beer
14x11 inches, watercolor, pencil, spray paint on paper, 2020

I think infanticide is pretty cruel. The whole concept of it seems very alien, but it didn't used to be that way. The practice was actually rather universal and still used among certain cultures that have not been in contact, or are independent from, the industrialized world. It's a debate of ethics I guess. We in the Western civilization would think of infanticide as unethical and the cultures who practice it as barbaric. They themselves think nothing of it. Ethics is a social construct and for most people in the world it is an effect of organized religion. Philosophy has a great deal to say about ethics too, but it is also formed on the same structures our civilization is built on. Philosophers think a lot about ethics,  they think about identity, and how and when a newborn baby becomes a person. They may consider that an infant becomes a person, a human being, at perhaps three years of age. Still philosophy will not condone infanticide. Imagine our cultural norms would shift, perhaps because of the philosophy of personhood, so that we come to think of babies becoming individuals at the age of one. This is when an infant would get "christened," named, assigned a gender, a character of its own, and so forth. The likely result of such a cultural debate would be that the general population could accept an abortion maybe a month or two later in the pregnancy than it is the case now. This, in my opinion, would be a good thing. Let them choose, and we, men, stay out of the debate altogether.

The Shuar are one of the peoples practicing infanticide, at least they did in 1984, when Michael Harner wrote Jivaro: Pepole of the Sacred Waterfalls.[Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984] They would only kill deformed babies though and not, as with some other cultures, do it as a sacred ritual, neither do they have a preference for girls or boys. As I sketched out in May life for a Shuar woman is hell. Who would blame them if they didn't want to bring a new baby girl into the world.

The photograph the above drawing is based on was taken by the same Michael J. Harner who also recorded the Social dance song and produced the record both photo and song are found on: Music of the Jivaro of Ecuador. [Ethnic Folkways, 1972]

COVID

Melakhan Langa, narh flute
11x14 inches, pencil, watercolor, flowers on paper, 2020

The Top 100 2020 series is nicknamed the COVID-19 series. This happened because when I started the series the country was under a lockdown order and people were asked to stay home because of the virus. I thought it was appropriate to make works at our living room table rather than my usual easel paintings done in the studio. To sit down and meticulously draw a picture seemed to capture the spirit of the time for for me. Then I also started to add the COVID-19 stats for the various regions the songs originated in. In that same spirit I felt the need the other day to not only make a meticulously detailed portrait of a musician but also to add flowers to it in a typical low-art-household-watercolor fashion. The wildflowers in our yard give me great joy and before I set out to photograph my drawing I decided to stick some actual flowers to the surface. The result represents for me more than any other the spirit of COVID-19. The drawing will probably look a bit more weathered tomorrow as it does in the photo (not to mention three weeks from now.) It so happened that this drawing was made on the very last blank page remaining in my sketchbook. All 27 works thus far in the Top 100 2020 are still attached to this sketchbook. I have purchased an identical book to continue the series and this full one now I could lay away with some weights on top. I wait a few weeks before I check how the flowers fared during their drying process.  

A bit about the music illustrated: The recording in the top 100 list is Flûte narh avec bourdon vocal and appears on Les voix de monde, une anthologie des expressions vocales published in 1996 by Hugo Zemp. The recording was made by Geneviève Dournon in 1993 in Rajasthan, India. The instrument used is the narh flute, cut from a kane called kar. The performer is Sherha Mahamad who belongs to the Islamic ethnic minority of Sindhi Sipahi. A vocal drone accompanies the way the flute is played. I did not have a picture so I searched for a substitute and learned some things about the flute, the tradition, and the people in the process. And I found a video of a man, Melakhan Langa, playing this flute. A beautiful video. The playing of the narh is yet another tradition in danger of dying out. 

Topoke on Video

Topoke Girl Playing Lilolo
14x11 inches, pencil, pen, watercolor on paper, 2020

Below is the step by step video of how this drawing came about. No need to write any information here as it's discussed in the video at length. It's one hour but really cool!

Amadu of Buzi

Amadu playing a jew's harp
14x11 inches, pencil and spray paint on paper, 2020

One more from Papua here, this time from the south coast, an area that is actually quite modern compared to areas from which other Papuan music I've written about originates. There's been many of those over the years. An area to which Coca-Cola, Starbucks, baseball caps and hip-hop have been introduced. Even in 1964 when the recordings were made that feature on Music from South New Guinea [Folkways, 1971] most photographs in the booklet show the performers in western style clothing. Back then the traditions in music were still remembered, I doubt of the traditions heard on the record are still alive today. The recordings in the collection were made by Wolfgang Laade mostly in Buzi, situated between the mouth of Fly River and the border with Indonesia (Irian Jaya). Amadu was recorded several times by Laade, once playing a darombi (a sort of jew's harp) like in the image above, he's heard on several songs he composed himself, and a recording of a tataro, a bundled panpipe. The tataro tune, the one in the top 100 list, is an improvised instrumental. He had asked a child to bring him some pawpaw stalks that he then bundled and blew into. Papua is still relatively unaffected by COVID-19 as the count still stands at 11, the same number from the last time I wrote it down. Nobody has died.

Red Hair

Charles Duvelle in Papua New Guinea
11x14 inches, pencils and spray paint on paper, 2020

Wame Igini Kamu is back in the list for the third straight year, that beautiful little ditty of a woman singing while washing her child. "The words rolling down her tongue like water," as Roots World quipped. I'm not so sure if there are any words in the song. I can sing along to all of the 1'45" of it, not using any words. (I'm sure if my impression of the song were offered to the singer she would get a good laugh out of it. But really, seriously, it sounds good superimposed. I should record it and post it here, one day.) This little (improvised I think) ditty has now passed the 100 points mark (meaning it entered the best 25 songs of 37 years counting.) I am so curious if the singer is named in the book The Photographs of Charles Duvelle. When it came out I ordered the music belonging to the book but didn't buy the book itself. I really want to read Duvelle's notes on the recording. I've now painted (or drawn) Charles Duvelle (1937-2017, France) four times. Oh...one more thing. I did notice it before but thought it was because of poor photographic reproduction quality, some people in Papua New Guinea have red hair. I just learned that Papuan children are born with red hair, and that with most it darkens when they get older. All the boys in the picture here have red hair save for one. And now I think of it...Sisiwa from the Solomon Islands also has red hair, she will be featured twice in this year's list of musical gems.

The Bobos and Gouins

Bobo Ceremonial Dance
11x14 inches, stencil print on paper, 2020

 From the same collection (The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume II: French Africa), from the same year (1948), the same country and district (Banfora, Burkino Faso), and recorded by the same ethnomusicologist (Andre Didier) as the previous post on the Wara People. The two Banfora recordings are consecutive on the record and in the Top 100 2020 (at 18 and 19 thus far). Rather than writing about this tune today I refer you to a forty minute narration behind a video I recorded of the process of creating the stencil print of the Bobo People that you see above. The video is the third in a the Top 100 Archive and Studio series, a sort of video diary that chronicles the progress on the soon to be opened venue. Hope you like it!

Recordings from Ogooue-Congo, 1946

Recordings from Ogooue-Congo
14x11 inches, spray paint and pencils on paper, 2020

Searching for an image to represent the Whistle Band of the Wara people for the Top 100, or any information concerning the Wara was difficult. The only reference, and only image of the Wara tribe I was able to detect came from a Christian site, The Joshua Project, monitoring missionary work and the spread of Christianity throughout the world. Quote: "...the Wara have a dubious distinction: they are generally regarded as the last of Burkino Faso's people to wear clothing..." I assume they meant "don't wear clothing" but hey, authors make mistakes too. The Wara, all 9,600 of them according to The Joshua Project, are resisting change. The liner notes, written by Gilbert Rouget and edited by Alan Lomax, on the album African Music from the French Colonies, number 2 in the Colombia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music series, also note that the Wara are an "island of ancient culture around which the mainstream of migration has flowed." The recording of the whistle band was made Andre Rouget in the Banfora district of Upper Volta (as Burkino Faso was then called as part of French Equatorial Africas) in 1948. In 1946 both Didier and Rouget were part of the Ogooue-Congo Mission famous for its distinction as being the first to record pygmy music. For a source image I settled for a photo, presumably taken by Rouget, of Didier recording during the Ogooue-Congo mission. The musician, too tall to be one of the Banbenga people Rouget and Didier recorded, holds something in his mouth (a flute, or whistle?) When I painted Didier last year I edited the musician away, so here is the other half without Didier this time.

'Are'are

Nonohanapata (l.) and Sisiwa (r.)
11 x 14 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

Last year I had chosen an photo taken by Hugo Zemp to illustrate the song Koleo, from the album Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal (Ocora/Radio France, 1970.) The photo was not taken in Guadalcanal but instead on the neighboring island Malaita, both belonging to the Solomon Islands in Melanesia. The image is a still from the documentary Musique 'Are'are (Hugo Zemp, Musee de l'Homme, 1993.) The section of the film the image appears in is during a performance of "aamamata," a funerary duet style song, a lament. The "koleo" of Guadalcanal belongs to the same tradition but is of a different group, island, and language. Koleo reappears in this year's top 100 and I was going to use the same image to start another painting. Starting another painting usually requires—and this is part of the longevity of the whole top 100 project—revisiting the music, additional research, and the selection of an image. During the research I found I was able to view the full documentary (2.5 hours) on line, and I settled in for the marathon. As a result many of the performers in the film ended up in a top 10 and several may make it into the final list of 100 songs for 2020. Nonohanapata and Sisiwa could very well be one of those in which case the image produced for Koleo should then shift to the funeral lament "aamamata" (called Lament by Mahasiwa.) 

The "Are'are, at the time of shooting the film in 1970s, were Christians, and the traditional music hardly performed any more. Age old traditions are vanishing throughout the world. Notable in the film by Zemp is that in the panflute ensembles he recorded some musicians were wearing blue jeans and t-shirts while others were stark naked.

Great Story!

Tangkhul Great Story Teller
14x11 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

The Canto Tangkhul on the web only collection La Voz Humana en la musica, parte 3 (Polifonias) was recorded dy Deben Bhattacharya in 1960 in Manipur, India. Manipur is a far-eastern state in India, and together with Nagaland home to the Tangkhul Naga. Manipur (and Nagaland) are a ways from the ocean yet their folklore and symbols are rife with maritime reference. The people came from Bhutan (many still live in Myanmar) and trace their origin back to China. While the Tangkhul are predominantly Christian, I was surprised to learn that they were once headhunters. Most Tangkhul today (I assume) won't have any association with their—not even that distant—past but I suspect that the "Great Story Teller" depicted above has quite the scoop on this matter. The story teller probably died a long time ago (I have no idea when the photograph I used was taken but given it's in black and white I assume at least fifty years ago) and in recent photographs the Tangkhul proudly show off their traditional costumes perhaps without the true context. Apart from a chest decoration the Story Teller has no costume at all. He holds a gourd in his hand that I believe is a musical instrument. It may very well be an instrument like that heard in the recording by Bhattacharya, which produces a melodic drone to accompany the mixed chorus singing the same melody. It's remarkable just melodious the song is. The background shows skulls of catttle and horses mounted to the side of a building, in photographs yet older the cattle skulls are human skulls. Blood sacrifice was important in Kangkhul ritual. The great story of the title not only references the Great Story Teller depicted but also the fact that no one has died of COVID-19 in either Manipur or Nagaland.

There's Cat Power songs in the Top 100 2020 too!

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, pencil and spray paint on paper, 2020

One of the few popular musicians that I continue to listen to is Cat Power. While last year saw a spike in Cat Power songs in the Top 100—a new album, Wanderer, was released—this year's contributions are less numerous but still significant. The song Wanderer was #1 last year, and currently standing at #12, it is the highest of three of her songs in this year's list. The other two are In Your Face also from the 2018 album Wanderer, and her best known song Good Woman returns as well. The latter is from her 2002 release You Are Free. The above drawing I started last week but initially it didn't click, so I started a new one from the same photograph by Christian Lantry. Both of these drawings I continued to work on with just a single pencil for several days until both satisfied me as a representation of Cat Power. The second one then is here to represent In Your Face in the Top 100 2020.

Cat Power
14 x 11 inches, pencil and tempera on paper, 2020

Top 100 2019-10: 1-10

1. Cat Power – Wanderer

Cat Power, oil on canvas, 2018

Wanderer is out now. I had preordered a copy that came with a 45. My first Cat Power 45. The record is great and my favorite thus far is the title track Wanderer. The song appears at the beginning and the end of the album and my preference is the latter version. The source for the image of the painting was provided by a September 23 New York Times article with a photo by Ryan Pfluger. All 100 for the current top 100 will be painted on a golden acrylic ground. The blue rectangle in the background here makes it look a cover for the National Geographic. 

2. Wame Igini Kami (Papua)

Charles Duvelle with his instrument, oil on canvas, 2019

Earlier paintings of Charles Duvelle featured him as an old man, here he is in his prime in the 1970s working on field recordings that became his legacy. He considered himself a "westerner with a microphone" and this painting shows just that. The track he recorded that is in the top 100 is, like last year, Wama Igini Kamu recorded in Papua New Guinea. The track comes in at #2 and appears on The Photographs of Charles Duvelle (Sublime Frequencies, 2017.) 

3. Chants funebre: Koleo 

Aamamata, funerary chant, oil on canvas, 2019

The Koleo (funerary chant) at #3 in the Top 100, is a rather recent development, a synthesis of the previous weeping tradition at a funeral and the vocal imitation of bamboo panpipes. The photograph that was the source for the painting features in a lengthy paper on bamboo flutes by Hugo Zemp. He probably took the picture. Depicted are two women performing the funerary chant Aamamata, a different recording than the Koleo that is featured on Iles Salomon: Musique de Guadalcanal (Ocora/Radio France, 1970.) 

4. Bongwater – Nick Cave Dolls

Ann Magnuson, oil on canvas, 2019

From the 1991 album The Power of Pussy LP comes the song Nick Cave Dolls. How did it happen that I didn't hear of Bongwater in the 1990s? "Wow...They have Nick Cave dolls now...I want one." Bongwater was formed by Mark Kramer and Ann Magnuson in 1985. Members of the band then also included David Licht and Dave Rick. Licht went on to form the Klezmatics, Rick to Phantom Tollbooth. Kramer founded Shimmy Disc Records in 1987. 

5. Kiyo Kurokawa, Teru Nishizama – Horippa

Kiyo Kurokawa, oil on canvas, 2019

Kiyo Kurokawa and Teru Nishizama perform several duets and a few solos on the cd Chants des Ainu (Ainu Songs) from the Musique & Musiciens du Monde series (UNESCO.) Last year songs of theirs were represented by stock images of  traditional Ainu women but now I think that I've found photos that actually depict the two women. The photos were made by Jean-Jacques Nattiez who also recorded the music and are found on Ainu Songs Japan (Phillips) which was in 1980 the first release of the music recorded in 1978 in Hokkaido. I do not have the original LP and liner notes are not published on the web so I can't be sure the images depict them or who's who. Given the prominence of Kurokawa on the LP and that she's seen clapping on another photo I may assume that the individual on the record sleeve is indeed Kurokawa.

 6. Tiom, Dani: Cour d'amour, air doux

Dani woman with children, oil on canvas, 2019

The Dani who live in the western (Indonesian) part of New Guinea are known for their appearances. Men wear penis sheaths that are quite long and pointy. The sheaths look vicious but I assume they function the opposite way as it keeps men from getting an erection and therefore discourages the idea of sexual intercourse. Women, when losing a dear one cut off a digit of one of their fingers, a painful way to mourn but it helps mourning I suppose. 

7. Bocet: Lament for a Dead Brother

Bela Bartok, oil on canvas, 2019

The Top 100, in the past, featured many a Bartok composition. Bela Bartok is back now in the Top 100, not as composer but as musicologist, and collector of folk music. He is well known for his work on the folk music of his native Hungary, but also collected Central– and Eastern European music extensively. Case in point is a CD with music from his collection I picked up the other day with folk music of Rumania (as it was spelled in 1951, when the music was first published.) 

8. Aate: Dance le femmes, Rope

Hugo Zemp, oil on canvas, 2019

Hugo Zemp is represented twice in the top 10 with recordings made in Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Both tracks come from the LP Iles Salomon: Music del Guadalcanal. Professor Zemp was born in Basle, Switzerland in 1937 and has recorded, written, and filmed on the subject of ethnic music. As a Swiss national (working in France) he is naturally interested in yodeling, a subject he also found in various places beside Switzerland. On the image above Zemp is seen playing a pan flute in the Solomon Islands. He must have transported that thing all the way from South America! The young woman (who may well be the individual heard on Aate: Dance le femmes) looks bewildered. I wonder if Zemp left the pan flute behind and if so, did the flutes end up in the repertoire of Solomon Islands traditional music?

note: Panpipes are indeed in the repertoire of traditional Solomon Islanders music. However...this is not because Hugo Zemp imported the flutes from South America but the islanders themselves invented their own pan flute and they make it out of bamboo.

9. Imitation of the cries of geese, Katajjait on geese cries

Jean-Jacques Nattiez, oil on canvas, 2019
Canada: Inuit Games and Songs was produced by Nattiez. The painting presented here is to illustrate Imitation of the Cries of Geese, a recording made at Baffin Land by Nicole Beaudry and Claude Charon in the mid seventies. Jean-Jacques Nattiez was born in Amiens, France, 30 December 1945. He is a musical semiologist and professor at the Université Montréal. He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1990. Performers of goose cries heard include: Elijah Pudloo Mageeta, Quanak Martha Meekeega, Napache Samaejuk Pootoogook, and Mary Qarjjurarjuk. 

10. Kiighwyaq Ensemble – Pic-eine'rkin: Ay-ay-amamay  

Kiighwyak Ensemble, oil on canvas, 2019

Ay-ay-amamay is a song seen on a video recorded by OPOS, a music program at the University of Basel, Switzerland. We see and hear seven singers who form the group Kiighwyak perform a pic-eine'rkin (a style of throat singing specific to the Siberian Chukchi). The song comes with a set of hand gestures. The movements of the hands, with an occasional clap in there, belong to the song. Traditions have withstood the ages, even when musical traditions have been repressed by political events. The Chukchi women seen in the video wear ordinary modern clothing. That traditional music isn't just performed by those peoples who haven't been in contact with civilizations, and that ancient musical traditions are performed in buckskin, or reindeer pelts belong to the world of myth.

The video for the last track (#10) is the second video shown on the page following this link: https://tales.nmc.unibas.ch/de/opos/pic-eine-rkin-7/erleben-9-54/sechs-pic-eine-rkin-182