Three paintings per week

Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin/Ocarina player (Abelam)

 

The image of the Abelam ocarina played I used last year to illustrate the song Nggwal mindsha. That same song was also part of the Top 100 2019 and was already illustrated for this year's top 100 as well. I commented last year that the ocarina wasn't heard on the recording but the image did come from the same album as Nggwal mindsha: Music of Oceania: The Abelam of Papua Niugini. [Musicaphone, 1983, Germany] The song the ocarina represents now is the actual song the image illustrates: Ocarinas and Bamboo Flutes. The song was recorded by Hauser in 1979 and the photograph was taken that year by Jorg Hauser. Ocarinas and Bamboo Flutes is in spirit much closer to the Abelam Warning, a recording that was my first introduction to the Abelam about ten years ago and at the time qualified as the most outlandish recording I've ever heard. Re-listening to the warning it no longer qualifies as being so outlandish at all. Familiarity will do that to you. I must disagree with the attitude of John Cage, who hated all sound recordings (he thought of sound as alive, recordings as dead). I find that hearing the same performance multiple times increases empathy (I admit that it wouldn't compare to witnessing the original performance, but it would be impossible to witness any of these ethnomusicology performances—it is still better to hear the recording than not hear this music at all.)

Martin Rev/M.I.A.

Born Free by M.I.A. has been in the Top 100 nearly every year since it was released in 2010. Her live performance of the song that same year on David Letterman's Late Show elevated the song to the status of 'one of my favorite songs ever.' On the Letterman performance she is joined by Martin Rev who, as one half of the band Suicide, was responsible for creating the riff M.I.A. sampled on Born Free 20 years earlier. The drummer on the session is Butchy Fuego, who also played with the Boredoms at the time. Because of Rev's presence I thought it was appropriate to share one of my favorite performances ever with the facebook group "No Wave." This was a mistake. (The first comment was "Well that's a crock of shit that pisses all over suicide.")

Meg White/Jack White (The White Stripes)

 

I don't think the No Wave group would have much positive to say about the White Stripes either. Yet, I love the both the the White Stripes and the No Wave group and follow their posts religiously. The No Wave group has been a great influence in this year's top 100. 7 Nation Army by the White Stripes doesn't need any special groups to become exposed to it. The song is all over the place. Much like Queen's We Will Rock You, 7 Nation Army has become sort of a rock 'n' roll anthem that you hear at football stadiums and commercials alike.

The Architecture and Ceremonies of the Abelam

Cover image of: The Abelam/Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin

Nggwal Mindsha, antiphony to the ancestral spirits is a ceremonial song by the Abelam of Papua New Guinea to be sung in the context of the building of a new ceremonial house. In the commentaries it is argued that songs like these should not be considered music because there is no entertainment value and that songs like these can't be separated from, in this case, the architecture they are dedicated to. The song is an integral part of the architectural process. (The architecture, b.t.w., is spectacular.) A description of the song (in the liner notes) mentions alternating voices of a man and a woman, but I really only hear one (I think it's a man's voice.) Beside the recordings found on the CD, Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin also wrote a monograph on the architecture of the Abelam and the larger Sepik River area in Papua New Guinea.

Of ocinaras and Luobaniya

"The ocinara is an instrument regarded 
as a voice of the spirits"
14 x 11 inches, pencil and spray paint on paper, 2020

The above quote comes from a page of the blog Anthems for the Nations of Luobaniya. Blogger bolingo69 is the " Chargé d'affaires et Ministre de la Culture et des relations internationelles Luobanienne." I had never heard of Luobaniya so I had to look it up: "Luobaniya exist wherever a Luobaniyan citizen is presently standing, the Luobaniyan territory is approximately one meter." [bolingo, in memory of Luobaniya liaolangsuo, Lars Frederiksson? The consulate of Luobaniya is in Channai, India] The page I linked you to is called Music of Oceania - The Abelam of Papua Niugini which is also the title of an album on which the song Nggwal mindsha, antiphony to the ancestral spirits is found. It was also in last year's 100 and earlier this year I wrote a few lines about it. There's no ocinara heard on the recording but the image (that I sourced from the bolingo's blog) appears on the album. The ocinara (a flute) belongs to a family of instruments dating back at least 12,000 years [Wikipedia] and was typically made of bone or clay. Today's ocinaras are usually made from metal or plastic.

Abelam

Abelam man, 1917
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

The Abelam are one of those groups of indigenous peoples that speak to my imagination. Like the Jivaro, Selk'nam, and the Andamanese, the Abelam of Papua New Guinea belong to those most remote and prehistoric one can imagine. Situated just south of the equator along the Sepik River, running from the Highlands of Papua north to the Pacific Ocean, the Abelam were first seen by westerners a mere hundred years ago remaining with characteristics of the stone age. No metallurgy or writing system they knew of, tools are just of stone or bone. I first learned of the Abelam through the collection The Music of Primitive Man [Horizon, 1973] that featured two short outtakes. One, Abelam Warning, belongs to the most outlandish recordings I've ever heard and was listed in a top 100 some ten years ago. Last year I came across the cd Music of Oceania: The Abelam of Papua Niugini [Musicaphone, 1983, Germany] and downloaded several tracks. Nggwal mindsha, antiphony to the ancestral spirits is now part of the latest top 100 edition. The sleeve features a photo of a characteristic Abelam ceremonial house. As primitive as the technology of the Abelam is, their ceremonial houses are exquisite and display highly advanced building techniques. The music was recorded by Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin who also wrote a lengthy paper of the distinguished architecture of the ceremonial houses. The first mention of these houses, and the Abelam for that matter, was recorded by another German, Richard Thurnwald in 1913. The individual in the painting above was situated in front of a ceremonial house in a 1913 photograph by Thurnwald. There are no women depicted in early photographs of the Abelam, and in more recent pictures women only feature as bystanders. Figures in ceremonial costume, at dances and in front of ceremonial houses are all men. Unlike in more recent photographs, in which men wear western style shorts or ceremonial attire, they are seen nude (at least the one that I painted). Remaining in recent photos is the unique hair fashion of Abelam men coiffed into a near perfect circle, like a halo, or sun disc. Noteworthy too in the appearance of the individual I painted are the feminine looking breasts. Perhaps this individual, standing while others in the photograph are sitting in front of him, is an important person, maybe a shaman. An often seen characteristic of shamans is gender ambiguity. I may be reading too much into this photo but a mind may wander and wonder at the marvels of such distant people.