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Sample Track 1:
"Yetoo;s Dream" from Listen...OKA! soundtrack
Sample Track 2:
"Bottlefunk Girls" from Listen...OKA! soundtrack
Layer 2
Album Review

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USA Today Travel, Album Review >>

This Listen Oka! project is a movie soundtrack for a fild directed by Lavinia Currier. It’s the story of ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno, a leading expert on Bayaka music who ignored a life-threatening disease to live for three decades among “the pygmies” of what is the Central African Republic. The music was recorded in remote tropical forests by Chris Berry, who brought a multitrack recorder into the field—literally—and helped corral all the sounds into intense songs making use of all the local instruments. He does cheat a little and add some western instruments on “Bokete” and “Lari’s Song,” but usually he avoids the temptation to meddle. Many of the songs follow cycles that are completely foreign to our ears and of course the lyrics, when there are any, are lost on us. That’s part of what makes this collection so fresh. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, along come the pygmies with their earth bows and tree drums. Unlike some “authentic” world music though that seems downright unlistenable to us (an hour of Tibetan horn players anyone?), this Oka! soundtrack is actually fun. It’s hard not to start moving when you hear a track like “Geedal.” Even with more than 20 selections on here, nothing feels like a throwaway—even a brief interlude that’s just a recording of jungle animal sounds. I hope the movie doesn’t suck because this is the most interesting soundtrack I’ve heard in ages. 02/27/12
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