exystence club

Mekong Shellac is an extremely rare collection of classical and popular styles of Khmer music from the 1930s to the 1950s. Restored from the few original remaining copies, this compilation reveals a remarkable world of early 20th-century Cambodian folk music previously lost in time through war, cultural shifts, and modernization. These recordings were selected for their distinctive musical qualities, the physical condition of the 78 rpm records from which they were sourced, and the circumstances of their survival.
The selections span a range of Khmer musical forms, including Chapey, Romvong, Lakon Basak, Pleng Khmer, Ayai, and Ayai Reung, as well as classical and court-derived traditions such as Pinpeat and Mahori, alongside popular…

This is raw, unfiltered ceremonial gong ensemble music recorded on location by Laurent Jeanneau in Ratanakiri, Cambodia’s northeastern province, bordering Laos and Vietnam. Along with Mondolkiri to the south, it was once home to many of the country’s ethnic minority communities. During the colonial period, the French failed to establish full control over the region. After independence, the Khmer state also struggled to govern it, while Khmer Rouge rebels hid in its forests in the 1960s amid the wider conflict between communist Vietnam and the United States. The Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 and the subsequent Vietnamese occupation, which lasted until 1991, could have devastated the traditions of northeastern Cambodia’s ethnic minorities.

Filmmaker, author, musician and Indian classical music industry academic Robert Millis presents a sequel to his 2018 book/2CD compilation Indian Talking Machine with this incredible double LP haul of instrumental Hindustani, Carnatic and folk 78rpm records from the subcontinent featuring over 25 artists recorded between 1904 and 1959 playing a panoply of instruments: jalatarang, dilruba, sarod, clarionet, pakhawaj, violin, been, kazoo, shehnai, tabla, sarangi, vina and more. Indian Talking Machine Part Two features Imdad Khan (the first sitarist ever recorded), Ahmedjan Thirkhawa, Bundu Khan, Amir Hussain, Allauddin Khan (who taught Ravi Shankar), and others both forgotten and revered.
The Indian classical instrumental tradition is…

…Tsapiky! is named for a musical style that’s been popular in recent decades in the Africa-facing southern corner of Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean. It’s the preferred soundtrack for extended celebrations that people there throw around transitional events.
If you’re getting married or buried, it’s common to have a band hoist some loudspeakers onto the roof of your truck and get the outdoor party rolling. Heard for the first time, it sounds a bit like Congolese soukous being played through a megaphone. It has that style’s open-ended dance grooves and sprightly melodies, but it’s decidedly lower budget. A typical tsapiky band will have a drum kit, a bassist laying down bulbous, intermittent pulses and an electric…

Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo.
However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records.