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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (April 22, 2016)
News Street Roots • April 22-28, 2016 Pictured here is Alfred o f the M alawi M ouse Boys. H e’s one o f numerous m usicians in M alawi that Ian Brennan has recorded fo r a world audience. BY SUZANNE ZALO KAR S T A F F W R IT E R an Brennan has worked to bring music diversity to the ears of listeners around the globe since he began making field recordings in San Francisco in the early 1990s. His first journey to another culture was with his wife, documentarian Marilena Delli, when they went to Rwanda. Delli’s mother was visiting her native land for the first time since the genocide of 1994, and Brennan’s wife was making a documentary about her return. The duo also wanted to actively search for music while they were there. Brennan said they were fortunate to meet The Good Ones, a trio of Rwandan genocide survivors who play joyous, acoustic love songs written in the ancient local street dialect He recorded with them and helped create their first album. Brennan said he and his wife rather liked searching through hundreds of thousands of miles of African savannah and desert to have the chance to work with the outstanding musicians that they found - even if that meant listening to as much, or more, bad music than good along the way. Tinariwen, a band whose tribe is in Mali, North Africa, recorded the album “Tassili” with Brennan and his portable studio. The album won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2012. Another group, The Malawi Mouse Boys, named for their side job of selling grilled mice kebabs on the side of the road, were introduced to the global music scene by Brennan and Delli. They released their third album “Forever is 4 Youp on April 8. And then there is The Zomba Prison Project, with 60 collaborators - all I that have done anything very interesting and incarcerated in a maximum security prison of those, Tinariwen, because they bring in the southern Malawi city of Zomba. The such a different perspective on time - the album, “I Have No Everything Here,” way they structure rhythms, and the way received Malawi’s first-ever Grammy they play together nomination in the as a unit, often World Music three or four category. guitar players at “Each project is a a time. labor of love,” said Brennan. “I know we S.Z.: What do can continue to find you think o f the good music. I hope label, “world we can continue to m usic” or “indie” find platforms for rock? that music to be heard and exposed, I.B.: Those are even if it is by a small ways of selling number ofpeople.” music for the Earlier this year he most part. I think "The re p e titio n Is «mfeealthy? released a book on world music is neurologlcaily. D iversity is music theory, “How especially healthy. It's not a p o litic a l or Music Dies (or Lives): problematic philo sophical stance? it's fust a Field-recording and because it the Battle for dictates Democracy in the something as the Arts.” center and IAN BRENNAN everything else is Suzanne Zalokar: “other,” and I Wkew you say, “One o f think that is a the only guitar bands in the last 2 5 years very dangerous concept. worth listening to, ” do you mean o f all guitar Cultures that are so very different from bands ever - this guitar band from Malawi, one another get clumped together as one one o f the poorest nations in the world, is the category whereas, what’s the difference guitar band to listen to? between heavy metal, rock, hard rock, alternative? Those lines are nearly Ian Brennan: Guitar is an extremely indistinguishable sometimes. Yet, in world overplayed instrument. It has pretty much music you are talking about everything from been exhausted of its possibilities. Inuit music to spiritual music from Pakistan The hype that surrounds English- to somebody who is playing a 20-piece speaking, two guitar, bass, drums combos is symphonic beat music from Ethiopia. It’s pretty tiring. sort of ridiculous putting them all together. There have only been a handful of bands Everybody wants to be an outsider, but it is usually extremely hollow. It’s not real at all. As a genre, indie rock has become just as predictable as any other genre that they are supposedly rebelling against or offering an alternative to. For people in America or in the U.K., when they have nothing else to call something, they want to call it “blues,” and because so much American music originates from the American Blues, a lot of times people will overly prescribe that to being influential in places it simply is n o t I mean, there is blues music in Cambodia and there is blues music in India and in Africa and they were not influenced by American Blues. Maybe in some recent fashion, but most of these forms have been around for hundreds of years or longer, and they are completely independent of the American Blues. S.Z.: You have a new book: “How M usic Dies or Lives: Field recording and the battle fo r democracy in the arts. ” Can you speak to the damages o f colonization in generalizing distinctive variations? I.B.: We live in a time where people potentially have the opportunity to hear more voices than ever before, but in fact, they listen to fewer. Certain voices dominate. Stylistically there is a real repetition, which is the nature of recorded music. It’s the ability to repeat and copy without error, exactly what has come before. There are dangers in th a t There is beauty in it too, there are strengths in it, but there are dangers. The book is about bringing up points for people to reflect on and have a dialogue See SOUNDS, page 13
