"We escaped with a single cassette, the clothes on our back, and our lives."
How's that quote for ya? Always a good way to start a blog that. Also, a good way to generate some interest in a record. The quote comes from a Mr David Blair Stiffler, who in 1988 went to the mountainous regions of Nueva Ecija, Aurora and Luzon in the Philippines to record some of the most isolated tribes on earth. Stiffler and his crew would be taken hostage and their recordings stolen, but that single cassette that Stiffler managed to bring back with him documents the aural traditions of a culture truly of its own making, without any outside influence. The music itself is not something to put on in the background while making the spag bol. It's a documentary of a culture we will almost certainly never experience otherwise. Mostly revolving around hypnotic, cyclical gong rhythms, the recordings are a fascinating and often intimate look at another culture. Released by Numero Group in 2014, check out sound clips from Music from the Mountain Provinces over at Juno.
I spoke of how the internet has allowed these sort of discoveries in my previous blog post and one of my favourite things about collecting music more widely is the diverse number of unusual things that are pressed to vinyl, cassette or CD. These types of records are often things I would never buy, not while I earn tuppence an hour anyway, but they open up a glimpse into something new, something that I would or could never have found an interest in before and from which I can explore new and related genre, interests and other such things.
Another such example I stumbled across was a 2011 reissue of The Evil Beast by Aleister Crowley. Just look at that record cover, how could I not check that bad boy out? I'd never heard of Crowley, but my Dad just tutted and sighed when I mentioned him once. Turns out he was an occultist and the founder of a religion called Thelema, he was dubbed by the press as "the wickedest man in the world". He was actually a bloke from Leamington Spa but he sounds like quite the fella. I'd urge anyone to look him up just to have a peruse of what this mad man got up to. The record itself is of Crowley muttering his fanatical preaching and frankly, if I turned up and someone was spinning this on their turntable then I'd probably sneak back out and call the police. But it's these random findings which make record collecting so enjoyable and unpredictable and it's also let me learn a little about the occult which can't be that bad a thing?
All this leads me to my latest discovery. Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico is not the name of a douchey surf-rock band but rather a collection of recordings of a healing vigil held by a Mexican curandera - a healer or witch doctor - on the night of July the 21/22, 1956. Maria Sabina, the curandera, would give the participants her "holy children" to consume before she would sing and chant throughout the night. Her "holy children" looked suspiciously like psilocybin mushrooms (magic mushrooms), so one can imagine that whatever happened, the night of July the 21/22, 1956 was an odd one for some people in remote Mexico. Once again the sounds are not the kind of thing I'd stick on when a few mates come round for a curry, but Sabina's gentle singing is haunting and intimate and gives such an interesting look into the kind of bizarre ritual that you only hear about in Indiana Jones and the like. The excellent record label Death is Not the End has a variety of bonkers recordings and I can only feel grateful that such interesting cultural practices, so far removed from anything I will actually experience, have been lovingly recorded and released to give the slightest of insight into these strange goings on.
Check out the label's bandcamp to buy and listen to Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico.
Maria Sabina
Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico
Death is Not the End
Vinyl LP and Cassette Tape out: 29/07/2016 at Norman Records
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