Water drums and rainforest music.

March 16, 2006 12:54 PM

Afro-Celtic music inspired by the Baka, pygmies living in the Central African rainforest of Cameroon. Rivers running through the rainforest are one of the alluring Bakas' favorite instruments, the water drum. Highly inventive and constantly changing, the vocal polyphony and the polyrhythmic sounds of hands and drums are prodigious achievements which astonish modern composers. There are various albums.
posted by nickyskye (11 comments total)

Straight to my bookmarks. Thanks!
posted by konolia at 1:31 PM on March 16, 2006

Wow, good stuff, thanks!
posted by saladin at 1:51 PM on March 16, 2006

Here I thought you were talking about the always interesting Afro Celt Sound System
posted by thanotopsis at 3:41 PM on March 16, 2006

a few of the bandmembers made an appearance on the 3rd st. promenade/santa monica in front of Hear Music - maybe 8 or 9 years back. I think I may have been the only person there that didn't realize they weren't homeless street performers. now they didn't have any pygmies with them, but that may have reinforced the whole homeless street performer look anyway.

my Baka Beyond cd's were among the very few that made the cut when I recently weeded out my music collection from that time period.
posted by lazymonster at 3:47 PM on March 16, 2006

I want to give thanks for how very sweet this is!
posted by vers at 3:53 PM on March 16, 2006

This looks really interesting, thanks, nickyskye. I too am a fan of Afro-Celt Sound System, but always assumed they were just melging two genres together because of the different musical backgrounds of their members.
posted by soyjoy at 7:19 PM on March 16, 2006

they're just splashing.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:28 PM on March 16, 2006

Afro-Celt Sound System is different than the Baka Beyond albums on the Baka Radio I posted as the first link. I had no idea there was a band namedAfro-Celt or I would have labelled my FPP differently.
Learning curve. :)

Apparently there are a number of afro-celtic groups from different countries who have made world fusion music.

I especially like the rhythmic, percussive splashing/water drum of the Baka.
posted by nickyskye at 9:42 PM on March 16, 2006

Cool stuff, thanks for the links.

MP3.com Bio and album reviews.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:43 AM on March 17, 2006

really great stuff
posted by pwedza at 10:06 AM on March 17, 2006

superb post, thank you nickskye.
posted by madamjujujive at 12:00 PM on March 17, 2006