Naim Karakand, Thewaprasit Ensemble, Gong Belaloewana Bali, Pipe Major Forsyth, Thiruvazhimilalai Subramanian Bros. & Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai, Paul Pendja Ensemble, Cyganska Orchestra Stefana, Zhehongyi with Nendi Zhaoguan, Patrick J. Touhey, Hutzl Ukrainian Ensemble, Neriman Altindag, Lata Mangeshkar, M. Nguyen van Minh-Con, Edwin Fischer, Marika Papagika, Petar Perunovic-Perun, Nji R. Hadji Djoehla, Niño de Priego, Prof. Lucas Junot, Sathoukhru Lukkhamkeow, Christer Falkenstrom, Representatives of the Democratic Youth of Indonesia, Sinkou Son & Kouran Kin, Po Sein (?), Refik Bey, Ban-nhac Than-kinb [Bu-u loc, Vinh Tran, Puong-Bich], Rosa Eskenazi, Lord Fly, John Halik, Pastora Pavon Cruz, Shalom Katz, Amelita Galli-Curci, Zaki Effendi Mourad, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Reuben Sarkisian, etc.
Influences
Pete Whelan's Origin Jazz Library, Pat Conte's the Secret Museum of Mankind, Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Henry Cowell's Music of the World's People, Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet's Sublime Frequencies, Lance Ledbetter's Goodbye Babylon, Michael Snow's The Last LP and much more.
"The role of the spiritual intermediary, like the polyphonic character of the lament, affords both license and protection to the individual. The dead may themselves lament through their intermediaries."
- Gail Holst-Warhaft, Cue for Passion: Grief and its Political Uses (2000)
"Immortal, it passes through the mirror
Pupil contracts a clean destruction
It's the star-ghost with black-fire soul
A null point in its inner coursing
Eye devours eye at the eternal nothing."
- Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, "Eternity in the Blink of an Eye" from Black Mirror: The Selected Poems (1938)
"Shellac is unique among resins in that it is an animal product. It is made by reddish insects 0.03 inches long, the larvae of which, after swarming, settle on the surface of soft twigs of the host trees of which there are six or seven main varieties, the lac from from the Kusum tree being the most prized. They thrust their beaks into the bark and commence sucking, exuding almost simultaneously through three tubes, two of which may be considered as extensions of the trachea for breathing, the third being the anal cleft."
-H. Courtney Cryson, The Gramophone Record (1938)
"For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the result of this evening's experiments: astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. But all the same I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery."
— Arthur Sullivan to Thomas Edison (1888)
Sounds Like
zamr, naa phaat piphat, gong kebyar, piping, periya melam, rhumba, juju, Carpathian weddings, rulin opera, Bollywood, dan bau, Handel, rembetika, cafe amane, smyrneiko, gusle, tembang sunda, flamenco, fado, prayer, djanger, pansori and yien pwe.
The Black Mirror is a compilation of 24 recordings from the first half of the 20th century of music from Syria, Bali, Scotland, Thailand, Ukraine, China, Camaroon, India, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Korea, Poland, Greece, Java, Portugal, Laos, Sweden and Burma, all newly transferred and mastered from 78 rpm discs, at least 18 of which never issued before on CD (all but one never having been previously reissued in the U.S.)
Canary Records is an vinyl-only label manufactured and distributed by Mississippi Records, dedicated to the reissue of non-English-language music of the 78rpm-era. Its first release is "A String of Pearls," a 14-track overview of music which serves as a bridge between the Black Mirror and the more specific studies to follow.
Each performance is a gorgeous manifestation of outrageous virtuosity, religious devotion, heart-stopping ebullience and/or worshipful ache, just as they reflect a moment in the personal trajectories of the individual performers and their now generations-past historical contexts, elucidated to a great degree by record collector and compiler Ian Nagoski's notes.
Drawn from the best of Nagoski's vernacular 78 collecting, Black Mirror began three years ago as a high-falutin meditation on love, death, social class and divinity. In its finished form, it's one of far too few overviews of peak human music from the period when the performance was the record and that was that.
Available for sale at: http://dust-digital.com/ or at Amazon
"...enigmatic, transfixing, haunting, pretty, and just plain odd. And while, yes, it's the product of a record geek for record geeks, it's such an idiosyncratic dose of the weird and the beautiful that it's hard to imagine any music fan not being intrigued by the mysteries it contains." - Bret McCabe, Baltimore City Paper
"wonderfully diverse... a testament to the continuing spirit of the excavation of lost music. There are so many musical revelations brought to focus on this single disc that it can be used as a valid primer of non-American ethnomusicology. That Nagoski had the wherewithal to curate such a heft of magic with such limited resources should be a call of arms to all of us that mine the crates. Here's hoping that this becomes a series as I bet there's plenty more treasures under this umbrella." - Steve Lowenthall, Fader
'Track after track on Black Mirror startles and delights, and the accumulation of all of it makes one wonder what other lost treasures, what other black mirrors of times and places and distant lives are stacked in the back of that old junk shop on the corner, for these pieces, in addition to being pleasures to listen to, are objects that have traveled and touched people along the way. That concept, that one can actually hand another a piece of music, a living, breathing piece of music created and captured in another time and place, and that that music can move from hand to hand and place to place until it is all but lost and half forgotten until someone like Nagoski rediscovers it, is fast slipping from our lives. Oh yeah, you can get on the web and do a virtual search, but this collection is for those who understand that virtual isn't exactly real. It is, by definition, only almost real. The selections on Black Mirror are real. They've traveled. They've been lost. They've been found. They live again and still as very real objects in this very real world." - Steve Leggett, All Music
"No slouch in the programming department, Nagoski has frontloaded Black Mirror with love-at-first-note stuff that flows across continents, decades, and traditions with skewed but unassailable logic." - Bill Myer, Dusted
"Smyrneiko Minore" by Marika Papagika (1919). video by Erin Womack
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=OXwAUmXWs8Q
"Kebyar Ding I" by Gong Belaloewana Bali (1928). video by Ann Everton
DEEPBLUE Mirror Canary Records is Lifelove- to life in the touching moments of the Musiklove Soo dammned!!! I love the Life ...when I look in the mirror...
Thanks a million Black Mirror for joining our ministry of Blues. It's about peace, love, understanding, and GROOVE! Hope to perform for you sometime. Thanks for keeping history alive. Wishing you the very best in Blues and life! -Big Daddy
