Tibetan Buddhism - Tantras of Gyuto: Sangwa Dupa

Tibetan Buddhism - Tantras of Gyuto: Sangwa Dupa (1975) - Monks Of The Monastery Of Gyuto, Tibet

This is the entire first side of the album (almost 25 mins) so kick back with the lights out and prepare to have the crap scared out of you!

Overtone Singing is known to a few different cultures, mostly across Asia, but also to the Inuit in North America. The Tibetan Buddhist chanting variant is practiced primarily as a meditative and religious rite. The example from this record is about 40 Buddhist Monks chanting A capella, but in practice the it is often accompanied by wind instruments, drums, bells, and the like.

The practice involves manipulating the shape of the vocal folds in the throat to accentuate certain harmonics over top the fundamental of the chanted note.  A bit about the science behind this here.

Typically, the accentuated harmonic is a major 3rd or perfect 5th, though it can venture all over the place, and result in some very interesting perceived intervals and chords within the drone texture.

Parakeet Training Record - Hartz Mountain Products

Parakeet Training Record (1952) - Hartz Mountain Products

Teaching a Parakeet to talk is fun! This dates from 1952, when training your bird to talk involved far more work than you cared to put into.

The Prophet - On Pleasure & Theme from The Prophet (Pleasure is a Freedom Song)

The Prophet: On Pleasure/Pleasure is a Freedom Song (1974) - Richard Harris/Arif Mardin

It's really hard to figure out where to start with this aesthetic train wreck. It's a musical interpretation of the famous work by Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran. The music was written and arranged by Arif Mardin, and the prose poetry read by Richard Harris.  For the uninitiated, The Prophet is an iconic work that has become synonymous with first-year English majors, hippie-philosophers, and other patchouli-soaked denizens. To be fair the book *is* a great work. On the other hand, this record is self-indulgent, self-important, and generally atrocious, much like first-year English majors, hippie-philosophers, and other patchouli-soaked denizens. It doesn't help that some pretty big league names are involved in its creation. Below are but a few of such characters:

Richard Harris - legendary actor and singer of MacArthur Park.  Known for having exactly two performing voices (if an SCTV parody is any guide.)

Arif Mardin - Turkish-American record producer with some very notable credits. He wrote, arranged, and conducted the whole album.

Tony Levin (bass) - mostly known for playing with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel, and other notable progasaurus 'rock' bands like Yes, and Asia,

Steve Gadd (drums) - well known drummer who has played on just a stupid number of big albums. Best to just see his discography.

Barry Manilow (backing vocals) - ruiner of piano ballads for all of contemporary Western culture vis a vis dreck like Mandy, and writer of among other things, some pretty well-known 70s commercial jingles. In fact when he went on his first solo tour, he used to perform what he called V.S.M, (Very Strange Medley) - a compilation of all the well-known commercial jingles that started his career.

Jerry Wexler (Executive Producer) - legendary Producer and A&R man who introduced us to or produced such acts as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan etc.

I don't know what the fuck this group was collectively thinking, but clearly somebody had some cash to burn.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (1952) - Dylan Thomas

What is so great about this recording of the famed poet reciting his own material is that it reminds me of an obsession I acquired studying composition in University.  I became fascinated with finding musical phrase patterns in natural speech and transcribing them.  Steve Reich explored this quite a bit and I caught the bug as well.  Dylan Thomas however, seems much more obvious in the way he recites.  It doesn't take much listening to hear natural musical phrasing and cadences all over the place.

This album was recorded a year before his death.

**Addendum**

I finally did a piano sketch of the tonality and cadences of Thomas' voice that I hear.
You can listen here.  Try listening to it a couple times then go back and listen to the original..