To listen to audio on Rock Paper Scissors you'll need to Get the Flash Player

Sample Track 1:
"Kyiylyp Turam (I'm Sad to Say Goodbye)" from Tengir-Too, Mountain Music of Kyrgyzstan (Music and Voices of Central Asia)
Sample Track 2:
"Excerpt from 'Manas' Epic" from Tengir-Too, Mountain Music of Kyrgyzstan (Music and Voices of Central Asia)
Buy Recording:
Tengir-Too, Mountain Music of Kyrgyzstan (Music and Voices of Central Asia)
Layer 2
CD Set Review

Click Here to go back.
Night After Night, CD Set Review >>

The invaluable Smithsonian Folkways label launches a new series of 10 CD/DVD releases with a trio of sets that I've been practically unable to stop spinning during the past few days. Funded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the Music of Central Asia series offers technically superlative recordings of musics that may well have been lost to time and political circumstance, from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

Like most of that last country's traditional master musicians, rubâb player Homayun Sakhi now lives elsewhere: specifically California. His performances of two long devotional ragas on the third volume of the series underscore the influence of Indian classical music in Afghanistan, yet you wouldn't likely mistake one for the other despite the burbling tabla accompaniment. Continuing backward, the second volume presents the Academy of Maqâm illustrating the poetic Shashmaqâm tradition of the Tajiks and Uzbeks with gorgeous, elaborate settings of verse by Sufi mystic Hafiz. My favorite of the three, though, is the first volume, by Kyrgyz ensemble Tengir-Too. This is mountain music from the far side of the globe, and a completely enthralling experience I rashly wager will be among my personal Top Ten for 2006. (If it's not, this will have been a phenomenal year indeed.) I haven't watched any of the DVDs yet; I'm saving those to savor with the Doc, who's halfway through her first semester of teaching a world-music survey. 03/01/06 >> go there
Click Here to go back.