Psychedelic Jew's Harp

October 4, 2004 10:39 PM

J.M. Nasim's Psychedelic Jew's Harp.Such a simple and ancient instrument, the Jew's Harp, or maultrommel, or Koukin, or Khomus, or guimbarde, or genggong, or numerous other names, has never sounded quite like this (streaming mp3 link).

I create this music live. No multi-tracking, no playback of pre-recorded material, no sampling. The raw signal of voice and Jew’s Harp feeds into a portable bank of automated processors. Here, various programmatic, architectonic sound spaces frame rhythmic zones within which certain acoustic potentialities reside. These sonic holograms manifest my musical explorations as shape-shifted sound. Seminal acoustics are gestated into new aural forms to birth multi- dimensional soundscapes of interpenetrating pulses and harmonics.

posted by garethspor (3 comments total)

JAWS
posted by Satapher at 10:44 PM on October 4, 2004

The Norwegian Jew's Harp Association. If you are interested in Norwegian munnharpa music I suggest buying this album.

"Psychedelic harp" sounds interesting, but only for the first 15 seconds. After that it just slid into meaningless "psychedelic" jamming. I find pure (acoustic) doromb playing much more fascinating to listen to.

I fell in love with the "munniharppu" years ago, when I heard this man play. Excerpts from his album can be heard here.
Unfortunately there is no sample of the song "G-Taklax (in A)" which in my view is much more "psychedelic" than Nasim's playing although Tapani's rendering of an old Finnish traditional melody is acoustic. (G-Taxlax is a veeery slow minuet, played for 8 minutes.)

I think that he is going to release a second album soon. Soon might mean "in a couple of years".

The Norwegian stuff is also very interesting. Rhytmic and complex.
posted by hoskala at 1:27 AM on October 5, 2004

Damn, mine doesn't sound like that! Very nice... Thanks g.
posted by LouReedsSon at 3:30 AM on October 5, 2004