The Asean Economic Community (AEC) is due to open the markets of 10 countries in Southeast Asia in 2015 and much has been written about how best to prepare to take advantage of the opportunities the economic union will bring.
Cai luong—a unique operetta style from Vietnam.
Like the Thai government, I suppose that each government is preparing information on the different countries. I have seen several pamphlets on the 10 different countries and not one mentions music or art. One pamphlet on Thailand just mentions khon dance as the sole music and dance style, and yet Thailand has so much more to offer, as indeed, do all the other countries.
Now all of these nations have healthy, booming markets for popular music. Thailand and Indonesia remain the powerhouses with the biggest markets for music, but other countries like Vietnam and Malaysia are also developing quickly. There is every kind of mainstream style from indie to J-pop/K-pop to dance to heavy metal/hard rock (very big in the region but rarely written about) but as these are mainstream styles that get plenty of media exposure, we'll sidestep these genres to make a swift survey of some of the most exciting popular roots styles in the region.
Thailand has its country music, luk thung, which these days is a catch-all term that covers classic luk thung, molam, kantrum (Thai-Khmer) and molam sing. Music historian and DJ Jenpop Jobkrabunwan says that luk thung accounts for 70% of sales of music in the provinces and the style and its many hybrids remain enormously popular.
One interesting new development is the emergence of club nights dedicated to spinning luk thung vinyl from the golden era of the 1970s.
Thailand has its country music and so does Indonesia: dangdut. With a funkier beat than luk thung, dangdut (which gets its name from sound of the Indian tabla claypot drum) is the ultimate pan-Indonesian popular style. Dangdut stars like Rhoma Irama, Elvy Sukhaesih and Inul Daristuta are like Hollywood stars and command huge fees and audiences. And as with Thailand, in recent years a bewildering variety of hybrids has developed (my current favourite is ska dangdut) and there are some proto-dangdut styles like orkes melayu and gambus that are worth checking out. There are also some exciting regional styles like pop Sunda and jaipongan from Sunda, West Java and minang from Sumatra, in addition to all the wonderful traditional music like Balinese and Javanese gamelan gong music.
Malaysia has many of the same styles as Indonesia and key early innovators like P Ramlee helped create modern Malay music. Religious-based music like dikir (which is often called likay wolou in Thailand) are also popular and worth checking out.
Cambodia, despite the horrors of the country's recent past, has a bubbling music scene. It also has a luk thung style called ramkbach and many funky styles like 'Khmer Surin' music _ the Cambodian take on kantrum music. In fact, if you travel in Thailand and try out the local music, you'll be well prepared for both Laos and Cambodia as all three countries have a shared cultural background. Laos has lam music as its most potent local style and one form, from Saravan province in southern Laos, has become the main lam style in Thailand as well. In Laos, every province has a lam dance and style and the rhythms go from cool in the North, where the music is known as cap, to spicy in the South.
Joining a lam festival in Laos (national holidays are the best time to witness Lao music) is one of the great musical experiences in the region _ you'll dance your socks off.
The Philippines also has a great variety of music with each region having strong traditional roots, especially in the South in places like Mindanao which has produced the country's leading world music musicians _ Joey Ayala and Grace Nono.
Filipinos have historically played a crucial role in bringing Western music like brass bands and jazz to other Southeast Asian countries and nearly every new popular style in the region was pioneered by Filipino artists _ protest folk rock often called "Pinoy rock" directly influenced Thai "song-for-life" rockers like Carabao (the name is Tagalog for buffalo), Put3ska was the first ska band and The Eraserheads the first indie band in the region. It was also the first country to set up ethnic music record labels.
Vietnam and Myanmar bookend the 10 countries (excluding Brunei, which I know nothing about) and both have very distinctive musical cultures. Vietnam boasts the second-oldest musical instrument in the world _ a 6,000-year-old stone marimba _ and a unique musical culture that includes a strange operetta style called cai luong, Northern folk music, ancient Hue court music and some of the weirdest musical instruments I've come across. Sixties beat music, taken from vinyl, is going to be one of the next DJ trends.
Myanmar is the one country I have yet to visit but I do plan a trip this year to sample some of the music. I am keen to talk to the two women who sing Glorious Sun on the Laya Project CD, whose vocal and temple bell performance gives me goosebumps every time I hear it and I would like to try and answer the question as to why Myanmar is the only country in Asia to have a harp (the national instrument) which sounds uncannily like the African 21-stringed kora. There are some lyres in Asia but not many and no harps. More on this as I find out how the instrument came to Myanmar.
There are plenty of styles and artists to check out in the region _ it's not all official, court-based music as the pamphlets on AEC countries seem to suggest. Put your Psy, Eurodance and indie rock aside for a moment because there is so much good music being performed and produced. You just have to look for it.
Thanks, Blank
World beat is in mourning following the news that the US documentary filmmaker Les Blank passed away recently. He is best known internationally for his film on a German director, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, but I came across Blank during graduate studies in film in London in the early 1980s after searching for films on American music. It was his first documentary, Running Around Like A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off, that really caught my attention.
Humorously told without any commentary, the film detailed the appalling lives of battery chickens in factory farms and may well have inspired a very funny song of a similar name by the rock band Magnetic Fields.
But it his films on regional music in the US that really cemented his reputation and got me excited. He made films on blues, Appalachian, Cajun, zydeco, creole and Tex-Mex music. During the time I was studying film I made a point of going to every Blank film I could find (no videos, VCDs or DVDs in those days, you had to go to the cinema). I found out about zydeco king Clifton Chenier, how Cajuns partied on a Saturday night "fish fry", what guitar legend Ry Cooder was up to before he became famous, who Lightnin' Hopkins was and why Dizzie Gillespie was a great jazz musician.
His films on music have become cultural treasures as many of the musicians he featured have passed away. For some of these great artists, Blank's films are the only decent visual histories we have of their work. In many ways, I have Blank to thank for firing up my interest in all kinds of different music; he certainly opened the door to so many of the fascinating regional styles of music in the USA that don't get much attention from the mainstream media. Many thanks, Les. More information from the website that features his film company, Flower Films: www.lesblank.com.
This column can be contacted at: clewley.john@gmail.com.
