Label: Coloursound Library – CS46
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: Germany
Released: 1985
Genre: Jazz, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Easy Listening
Incredible offering from Belgian multi-instrumentalist Joel Vandroogenbroeck (god bless copy & paste) on Munich's experimental institution Coloursound Library. Although composed for intended use on TV / film / radio, I'd say these recordings feel genuinely authentic and to these ears could pass for any of the ethnographic recordings taken from Ocora or Musicaphon. They're short bursts between two and three minutes of focusing on mainly repetitive percussions and polyrhythms with the A-side devoted to 'Typically Indonesian' music, with further sections for Bali, Java and Borneo (!!). The B-side offers pieces dedicated to Singapore, China and Cambodia - again with surprising authenticity across a range of moods, and yeah you'd be right to be weary of the European composer reimagining 'the east' as it can often fail as a new-age orientalist but this one DOESN'T! Rarely spotted in the wild! Great LP. (NM / NM).
