Panama! / Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia / Radio Thailand / Radio Algeria

Panama!

Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75

(Soundway)

Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia

(Sublime Frequencies)

Radio Thailand

(Sublime Frequencies)

Radio Algeria

(Sublime Frequencies)

At the crossroads of the Western Hemisphere, Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75 incorporates a wide array of cultural influence into its teeming jungle of tropical rhythms. Uncovering an entire radio station's worth of abandoned vinyl in the working-class town of David, musicologist Roberto Ernesto Gyemant discovered the full extent of Panama's transcontinental diversity, record by moldy record. As strong Afro-Caribbean accents adorn Latin-American staples of salsa, descarga, and cumbia, African-American jazz, soul, and funk add further color to Panama's multihued headdress of sound. Through 15 songs and exhaustive liner notes, Combos Nacionalis including Los Exagerados, Papi Brandao y Sus Ejecutivos, and Los Caballeros de Colon emerge triumphantly from decades of isolation and obscurity. From an entirely different tropical locale comes Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia, which compiles field recordings conducted by Laurent Janneau over the course of 2003-05. Relentless tribal chants accompany bamboo flutes, gongs, and indigenous guitars as the many shades and styles of the Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces reveal themselves as utterly mesmerizing. In most global travel, radio provides the most accessible window into any country's popular aversions. Language barriers often give way to artistic appreciation as unknown dialects air themselves in abstract lyricism to the untrained ear. By way of Radio Thailand and Radio Algeria, Sublime Frequencies offers up everything from universally cheesy commercial spots to traditional ceremonial music for frank explorations into foreign ways of life. Hitting all angles of aural entertainment, the full gambit of Molam, Luk Thung, Kantrum, Guesba, Rai, Khabyle, Tuareg, and Saharaui musics are represented by these most peculiar and endlessly abundant collections of recorded radio broadcasts.

(Panama)

(Thailand)

(Algeria; Cambodia)