Babenzele Pygmies (Ellipsis Arts...) (cd + book)
by Ric Stewart
One of the best projects I've ever seen! Louis Sarno, a native of New Jersey,
has lived in the quickly dissappearing rainforest of The Central African Republic
with the prodigiously musical Babenzele Pygmies for ten years. "Sarno on Nature and Spirits" Bayaka presents the sounds of the
Pygmies performing flute, percussion, choral and string instrument based
tapestries of sound virtually shrouding you in the rainforest proper. The lush,
verdant locale with its insects and birds is captured with ambience and viceral
naturalism by recordist Bernie Krause. The high fidelity compact disc
(accomapanied by a deep concise text written by Sarno) gives you a well rounded
picture of life in the forest. Listen to this clip of the boyobi ceremony.
The ceremony is performed before net and spear hunts to ensure success and
protect the hunters from harm. "Boyobi"
In this music the Bayaka play drums, pots, logs and sticks combining with
polyphonic choral singing of men, women and children.  "They wanted to show me more than they usually
show outsiders. In exchange they demanded I give them my life...I think it is a
fair exchange."-- Louis Sarno The time may be short for the
Pygmies due to encroaching developments which upset the delicate natural balance
of the rainforest where they gather food, live and play music. The Bayaka stand
apart from modernization, and depend on nature's bounty. The music which they
create can easily be seen as a response to and continuation of this bounty.
Their culture is oral and as their music demonstrates they have brilliantly
trained their voices to work with the unique acoustics of the forest. A
beautiful soothing recording which is bound to grow on you with repeated
listening.
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