Wow. This is a big thing. It’s a big thing both in its “thingness,” its physicality — and also its immaterial, historical quality. How about that? It’s a 4D thing. The Photographs of Charles Duvelle bends time and space more than any other album in history. How cool is that? It’s like a massive celestial object with its own gravity. It’s like a quantum string. It’s like the übermensch thinking they’re the center of the world. I write to you, reader, across these dual planes in an attempt to reach you! To make you feel! To break the hyper-speed music news cycle that deadens our minds and our senses!! Lo and behold!!! Let me DE-REIFY us!!!!
OK…look, I see you leering at me through the screen. I’d better get to the point: I have to write about the actual album and give you the frickin’ “press lowdown” on the music and the formats and the release date and where you can get the thing. If I don’t, my editor banishes me from the TMT forums, and then I can no longer info-tain TMT’s audience of millions — and then I just become another Raskolnikov kid bumbling about musicology in a Bushwick coffee shop. AND THEN I have to start my own blog. (Do you dislike me yet?)
Well, here goes nothing. Or maybe it will be “something?” Or maybe. Or maybe… it will be more than something. Ahhh-hhhem:
Charles Duvelle, an important figure in musicology and a pioneer of field recording. The Frenchman traveled all over the world to document the musical practices of indigenous cultures, releasing hundreds of recordings on his own imprint Disques Ocora. Check the discography for an encyclopedic archive of the world’s musics. Carl Sagan even included one of Duvelle’s Benin recordings among the Voyager Golden Records which were sent off to space on the Voyager spacecraft, to be picked up perhaps by E.T., or maybe by the Engineers (if they’re still out there; I’m seeing Alien Covenant tonight and I’m psyched).
But as the Voyager continues to drift — and as E.T. awaits his first taste of Duvelle’s lovely ear for human sound-making — those of us still on earth just get more and more of it! The Sublime Frequencies label has put together a big ol’ bundled package that includes a 2xCD compilation of unreleased and extended recordings from Africa and Asia and an art book showing off 246 of Duvelle’s field photographs, as well as a lengthy interview conducted by Sublime Frequencies co-founder Hisham Mayet. The book is a luxurious thing, “printed on 170-GSM LumiSilk matte art paper and bound in gray buckram with gold-foil stamping on the cover and spine,” paying tribute to Ocora’s great design work. Check out all the info, including full press release, bundle contents, and track samples, through US distributor Forced Exposure. There you can pre-order for the June 30 release. Until then, check out the CD sampler embedded below to help you can get a sense of the phenomenal textures found in this collection…and those human bodies that actually made them.
There. I hope this content was/is…”meaningful?”
The Photographs of Charles Duvelle tracklisting:
Disc One: Prophet Kaleidoscope
01. Sakara (Benin)
02. Court Orchestra Of Naba Tigre (Burkina Faso)
03. Wame Igini Kamu (Papua New Guinea)
04. Duet Of Sanzas (Bissa)
05. Samy Faly (Madagascar)
06. Pili Pe (Papua New Guinea)
07. Medzang Me Biang (Gabon)
08. Malinke Balafons (Guinea)
09. Laments (Papua New Guinea)
10. Cengumé (Benin)
11. Bopal Solo (Burkina Faso)
12. Balante Balafon (Guinea Bissau)
13. Mbalé (Centrafrican Republic)
Disc Two: Asian Blows
01. Sohan Lal - Sodina (India)
02. Kheo Oudon - Khene Lao (Laos)
03. Madurai Ramaswami Gautam - Dhrupad (India)
More about: Charles Duvelle
