The Gyspy Trail Revisited...

http://www.siebethissen.net/Dr_Auratheft/Mom_Radio/index.htm

1 Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan: Fusion
2 Kudsi Erguner’s Flamenco & Musique Soufi Ottomane: Unión de las Almas
3 Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan: Bhapang
4 Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan: Pungi
5 Pepe Habichuela & the Bollywood Strings: En El Grec
6 Chor Chor: Jor Lagaa
7 George Abdo: El Badree
8 Farah Dance Orchestra: Dance, Dance, Dance
9 Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan : Patashadi
10 El Lebrijano: A Canela y Menta
11 Fusion (Reprise)

The prolific and always enlightened Wayne&Wax raised an interesting debate on May 24th: “Nu Whirl Music – Blogged in Translation?” It contains reflections on the popularity of “other musics” – “new movements in (and of) post-colonial pop/dance music [that] have tended to swirl together via various eclecticist, ecumenical, open-eared (and perhaps open-minded) middlemen (and women)”.

Being such a “middleman” myself (I guess) – posting “cultural translations” via music on my website/weblog - I recognize (and value) Wayne’s concerns. Here are some quotes:

“Should we understand our acts of translation as encounter? Or as appropriation? Encounter, even in its colonialist history, was meant to close the gap between self and other, clearly with power skewed toward the self. Appropriation, in contrast, often led to the eventual elimination of the gap, once the other was stripped of her identity. Inescapably for ethnomusicologists, this paradox bears the weight of ethical and moral imperatives”.

“This embrace of “other musics” is not entirely unlike that in the “world music” circuit/market more generally, except that somewhat different notions of authenticity appear to animate the activity in these distinct, if overlapping spheres”.

“In what we call “trad” “world music”, authenticity is often conferred onto the traditional , the pristine, the timeless, the exotic, that which has been untainted by capitalism, by Western cultural imperialism, etc. Whereas recent movements on the music blogosphere tend to do the opposite: never mind these false ideas about purity, they seem to say, we want our global crunk, we want hybrids and fusions, we want mirror-mirror reflections and refractions of New World and Old World, North and South, East and West, we want music concerned with the future as much as (or more than) the past, we want drum machines and samples, for the local is always (trans)local and the global is (always already) here”.

“How do we understand the ethics of blogging about, mixing, sharing and otherwise mediating new world music (or whatever u wanna call it)? Might we think about such activities as translations? If so, what is gained and what is lost?”

Read more about it here: http://wayneandwax.com/?p=143

Very interesting stuff, though I am not sure if I am able to answer Wayne’s questions (yet). But I feel I have to come up with some answers soon. Why am I posting “other musics”? Am I part of these “recent movements” – without even knowing they were there? Do I want/need hybrids and fusions? And isn’t there a third way – stuck somewhere between “trad world” and “nu ‘other’ world”? (hybrids and fusions and mixes are only cool if the separate ingredients are cool – think of cocktails. Hybrids only make sense in a discourse of identity: you don’t mix hybrids with hybrids). Anyway, I like the idea of someone asking me what the hell I am doing out there in the blogosphere: “What is gained and what is lost”? I really would like to get back to this. Later.

I got particularly fascinated with “other musics” on my weblog recently because of political motives (ánd for the love of music in the first place). I’m frustrated with the whole “Identity” discourse that is haunting The Netherlands (especially Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party and Jan Marijnissen’s Socialist Party – the two parties that won last elections) and Europe (let’s call it the Muslim Question). I just want to show – in sound – that identity is a problematic and ideological discourse. And it’s dangerous to think there’s something like a Judeo-Christian Foundation of Europe. There are many roots and routes, tracks and trails, narratives and stories, texts and contexts. Let’s make our own atlas, folks. This is what we share. Or expressed in sound and music: listen & learn. My posted “other musics” were (sonic) arguments for a post-European (or better: post-global) dialogue.

The “Doaba Gypsies” mix has received a lot of attention and stimulating responses. Many listeners have sent music or mentioned other records that would fit into the concept. This mixtape, “The Gypsy Trail Revisited” contains most of these references. Thanks for these exciting suggestions – here’s your contribution to the idea of an open society.

Doaba:
http://siebethissen.blogspot.com/2006/09/doaba-gypsies-post-european-dialogues.html

(p.s. This is funny: compare the Gypsy Route on the map with the 'tour' Hegel’s “Welt Geist" made and you know what I’m trying to talk about.)