Continental Drift

continental drift 8/28/23- turkey

For today’s episode, we’re looking at Turkey! You can find the playlist here and listen back to the episode here.

The Republic of Turkey is a country that lies mostly in West Asia, but which peeks just a tad into Southeast Europe. It borders the Black, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas, as well as the countries of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Greece, and Bulgaria. With a bit over 85 million people, it is the 17th-largest country by population. The official and predominantly-spoken language of Turkey is Turkish, but a multitude of other languages are spoken throughout the country such as Kurdish, Arabic, and Zazaki.

Anatolia is the name of the geographic region that is now Turkey. For a large swath of time starting in the 13th century, Anatolia would be under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and as such, music of the region would be heavily influenced by the Ottomans. There’s an incredibly rich tradition of Ottoman classical music originally meant to be performed in Ottoman palaces. Turkish music theory itself is a vast and expansive subject, so we won’t get super deep into it in the episode, but one thing worth noting is that it has roots in both Persian and Greek musical styles. This is important because as Persian classical music started to fall by the wayside, the music of the Ottoman Empire would begin to synthesize Persian and Byzantine music styles into a unique Ottoman identity.

Folk & Classical Music Segment

Kemençe improvisation in Makam Segah // Sufi Music Ensemble

Tanbur impovization in Makam Hüzzam // Sufi Music Ensemble

Ud improvisation in Makam Hicaz // Sufi Music Ensemble

Üsküdar’a gider iken // Safiye Ayla

Moving on from folk music, the military music of the Ottoman Empire was particularly of note. Ottoman military bands, sometimes called mehteran, are the oldest recorded military bands, to the extent that later instances of military marching bands, even to this day, are derived from the Ottoman Empire. Beyond simply copying the formation of military bands themselves, though, the Western world also found something very appealing about the mehteran sound and composers like Mozart and Beethoven ended up writing music inspired by it.

Mehteran + Imitation of Mehteran Segment

Yelkenler Biçilecek // Mehter

Türkler Geliyor // Mehter

Rondo Alla Turca // Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Modern-day mehteran

In spite of this sort of passing of Ottoman music traditions into Europe, cultural exchange is often a two-way street, and while Ottoman music styles made their way into the works of Western European composers, the landscape of Ottoman, and eventually Turkish Republican, music would shift to become much closer to Western European music styles. As far back as the early 19th century, Turkish musicians would receive instruction in both Ottoman and Western musical traditions, and when the Ottoman Empire finally fell after the end of World War 1, the new Republic of Turkey underwent a large-scale cultural revolution intended to align it with Western culture.

The first president of Turkey, Ataturk, in order to sort of cultivate a national identity, made efforts to ban Ottoman-style music from being broadcast over radio or published and taught to musicians in a formal context. This would essentially force Western musical tradition to become the predominant musical tradition in Turkey, but in the meantime, for a number of reasons including geographical proximity to Arabic-speaking countries and Arabic-speaking immigrants into Turkey, the Turkish music scene in the 1960s would shift to favor the musical style known as Arabesque.

Arabesque Segment

Geceler // Bülent Ersoy

Acıların Kadını // Bergen

Also in the 1960s, rock music made its way from the US and UK to Turkey, and as is prone to occur, cultural syncretism between Turkish folk music and rock led to the birth of Anatolian rock.

Anatolian Rock Segment

Silinmeyen Hatıralar // Erkin Koray

Kızılcıklar // Barış Manço & Kaygısızlar

Kalk Gidelim // Altin Gün

Erkin Koray

Turkish Pop To Close the Episode

Kaçın Kurası // Sezen Aksu

Şımarık // Tarkan

Monday, August 28, 2023 | Posted in Continental Drift, Playlists, Shows | Comments Off

continental drift 8/23/23- jamaica

Welcome back to Continental Drift! For our first episode of the semester, we’re gonna be looking at Jamaica. Listen to the playlist here and listen back to the episode here.

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea, just south of Cuba and west of Haiti. With a population of just under 3 million people, Jamaica’s population is 137th largest in the world, but the 3rd most populous English-speaking country in the Americas, behind only the US and Canada. Most Jamaicans speak Patois, which is an English-based creole language which also contains elements of Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, and Twi, among others.

Jamaica was colonized by the Spanish in 1509, but after the Anglo-Spanish War ended in 1660, Jamaica was firmly under the control of the English. As early as 1907, Englishmen like Walter Jekyll would begin to take notice of the folk songs sung by the inhabitants of the island. Sometimes they’d be just be music for music’s sake, and other times they’d based on folklore, like stories about Anansi, the mythological trickster spider who regularly outwitted much larger foes; amidst occupation by various empires, the concept that brains could beat brawn was of some comfort to Jamaicans.

Later into the 20th century, Jamaican musicologists like Louise Bennett and Dr. Olive Lewin would record and publish the folk songs for posterity, occasionally building ensembles such as the Jamaican Folk Singers to perform and preserve Jamaican folk songs in Patois rather than “pure” English.

Folk Music Segment:

Linstead Market // Louise Bennett

Towns of Jamaica // Louise Bennett

Hol’ ‘M Joe // Louise Bennett

Louise Bennett, also known as Miss Lou

Louise Bennett, or Miss Lou, was dedicated to preserving Jamaican culture by producing literature spoken in Patois. Miss Lou also had an impact on the development of mento, a uniquely Jamaican music form. Mento fuses African and European musical techniques to make something new. It started to get popular in the 40s, but saw a meteoric rise in the 1950s as it started to become better known outside of Jamaica.

One of the most popular mento artists was a man named Harry Belafonte, a Jamaican-American singer who put Jamaican music on the map with his 1957 hit Banana Boat (Day-O). Miss Lou was directly involved in its creation, having told Belafonte about a Jamaican folk song called Hill and Gully Rider which would be the basis for the song.

Mento often gets confused for the Trinidadian music form calypso, and Belafonte’s success as a mento artist helped popularize calypso to mainstream audiences. One mento musician by the name of Lord Flea is cited as saying that this confusion is not fully accidental, because while it does play into the stereotype that Caribbean islanders are all happy-go-lucky, that’s what the tourists wanna see, so it became a smart business move to market mento as calypso to people outside Jamaica.

Mento Segment

Banana Boat (Day-O) // Harry Belafonte

Jamaica Farewell // Harry Belafonte

Belafonte’s mento album (it’s only titled Calypso!)

In the late ‘50s, more and more Jamaicans bought radios that were able to pick up signals from the Southern part of the United States, and as tends to happen when people hear new music, this led to cultural diffusion. In particular, they were influenced by R&B and this led to the eventual development of ska by groups like the Skatelites and Desmond Dekker. The earliest ska was characterized by prominent horns and its rhythm guitar “skanking” on the off-beats of the song, and this type of pattern would live on in some manner through the art forms descended from ska.

Ska + Rocksteady Segment

Freedom Sounds // The Skatelites

King of Ska // Desmond Dekker and the Cherry Pies

007 (Shanty Town) // Desmond Dekker

Rude boys in 1966

Just as ska arose from the mixing of mento and American R&B, the mixing of American soul music with ska led to the birth of a genre called rocksteady, which, like ska, has a rhythm guitar playing on the offbeat, but it’s a bit slower, which lets the bass line shine through a bit more. Rocksteady found an audience with rude boys, which are a Jamaican subculture of discontented youths who had a reputation for violent, disruptive behavior. However, as a genre, rocksteady didn’t enjoy much time in the sun, and quickly was supplanted by perhaps the best-known Jamaican music form at the end of the 1960s.

Reggae Segment

I Shot the Sheriff // Bob Marley and the Wailers

Reggae, like its predecessor rocksteady, was descended from ska, but allowed itself to embrace a sort of roughness that the soul-inspired rocksteady didn’t lend itself to. And like its predecessors, it and its performers adapted other forms of music to make something new.

Modern Jamaican Music Segment

Still Searchin’ // Damian Marley

Boombala // Infantry Rockers

Boombala is an example of a genre called dub, which combines reggae with elements of electronic music. It also features a mode of performance called toasting, which usually involves speaking or rapping over a reggae beat, often in a monotonous voice.

Still Searchin’ is more clearly an example of a Jamaican adaptation of an American music style, particularly hip-hop; you can hear how even though Damian Marley isn’t really leaning into a reggae influence in the song, he’s performing it in Patois, showing a different way for how the cultures can syncretize.

This has been Continental Drift!

Last Song Because It Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone

Israelites // Desmond Dekker

Thursday, August 24, 2023 | Posted in Continental Drift, Playlists, Shows | Comments Off

continental drift 8/2/23- egypt

Today’s episode takes us halfway across the globe to Egypt! Listen to the playlist here, and listen back to the episode here.

The Arab Republic of Egypt spans the northeast corner of Africa into the southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai peninsula. Approximately 100 million people live here, making it the 14th most populous country in the world, and the 3rd most populated in Africa. Its official language is Arabic. Egypt has one of the longest histories in the world, as ancient Egypt is considered a cradle of civilization. Egypt had some of the earliest writings, agriculture, urbanization, organized religion, and centralized government, and also some of the first musical instruments and traditions.

The development of ancient Greek music, and thus the development of early European music, was impacted significantly by Egyptian music. Egypt was dominant in its region for thousands of years and thus influenced its neighbors greatly. Many of the instruments claimed in the Bible to have been played by the ancient Hebrews are Egyptian, as established by archaeologists.

There’s a lot of music to get through here, so we’re actually going to skip to the 20th century.

Sha’abi is a popular working-class music genre established around the 1950s. Sha’abi means “locally popular,” and was developed by Sayyid Darwish, a songwriter and composer.

Sha’abi Sample:
Bent El Soltan // Ahmed Adaweya

Classical music took hold in Egypt after European instruments such as the piano and the violin were introduced. Operas and orchestras sprang up, with Egyptian composers soon becoming known worldwide. One of whom is Abu Bakr Kharat, trained as an architect. On the side, he studied music composition, all while continuing his career in architecture. He designed the Academy of Arts complex and the Sayed Darwish Concert Hall.

Classical Sample:
Abu Bakr Kharat- Egyptian folk suite (mid 20th century)

Drummer Salah Ragab is credited with starting up Egyptian jazz, as he is the cofounder of Cairo Jazz Band, which he created while in the army. They established swing jazz in the country.

Jazz sample:
The Crossing // Salah Ragab, The Cairo Jazz Band

Maha was once a vocalist for the Cairo Jazz Band, among others. She released a solo album on tape in the late 70s, but it didn’t receive much buzz until being rereleased on the Habibi Funk label recently.

Habibi Funk/Funk Segment:
We Mesheet // Maha
Ayonha // Hamid Al Shaeri
Longa 79 // Al Massrieen
Habibi // Firzkat al Pharana

Hamid Al Shaeri is the father of Al Jeel, an Egyptian alternative to popular western music in the 70s. The genre is modeled after pop and rock and roll, with a dance focus. It’s called “new wave” by many, not for its resemblance to the traditional New Wave, but for being a new wave of pop music in the country, taking over after Sha’abi.

Modern Funk/whatever:
nefsif akli (my self with my head) // Lekhfa
Slaughterhouse // Invisible Hands
Jessica // Youssra El Hawary

Art by Allison Felice

Electronic segment:
Halim El-Dabh – “Wire Recorder Piece” (1944)
Fr3sh // Kareem Lotfy
Dareen

On the vanguard: The life and work of Halim El Dabh Halim El-Dabh was the father of electronic music in Egypt. Born in 1921, he was a composer, musician, and ethnomusicologist who made the first strictly electronic piece of music in the world with “Wire Recorder Piece” in 1944. Drawing from recordings he made of a zar healing ceremony on the outskirts of Cairo, he used studio techniques to create a cavernous vortex of reverberated howls—as he has told journalist Maha ElNabawi in an interview with Egyptian news media Mada—to get at the “inner sound” of this ancient ritual, which uses music and chanting to draw out spirits from a possessed person.

Kareem Lotfy’s “Fr3sh” is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit with Kanye West, who allegedly sampled the song without permission or credit on West’s album, ye.

This has been continental drift!

Wednesday, August 2, 2023 | Posted in Continental Drift, Playlists, Shows | Comments Off

Continental Drift 7/19/23- Australia

Welcome back, at long last, to Continental Drift! Today we are drifting allllll the way to another corner of our spherical globe and visiting the lovely country of Australia. Find the playlist here, and listen back to the episode here.

The Commonwealth of Australia comprises mainland Australia, the island of Tasmania, and many other islands. It is the world’s sixth largest country by area and 53rd by population, with a population of 26.6 million. The name Australia comes from “Terra Australis,” a term used to describe a hypothetical continent in the southern hemisphere since ancient times. From 1644 to the early 1800s, it was known as “New Holland,” after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman.

Indigenous Australians include the aboriginal people of the mainland and Torres Strait Islanders, who are a distinct group of Melanesians. Aboriginal people are thought to have arrived in Australia 50,000-65,000 years ago from land bridges in what is now Southeast Asia.

1997 album Waak Waak ga Min Min (Black Crow, White Cockatoo) comes from three Yolngu songmen from Northeast Arnhem Land – Bobby Bunnungurr, Jimmy Djamunba and Peter Milaynga- working in collaboration with Victorian musician Peter Mumme. The result of the collaboration is an electronic fusion with aboriginal vocal elements. The songs reimagine the traditional songs of black crows and white cockatoos.

Didgeridoo Authenticity | iDIDJ Australia

The didgeridoo is one of the oldest instruments on earth, originating with Australia’s aboriginal people. The didgeridoo is played like an aerophone with a technique called “circular breathing,” which allows for a continuous sound by intaking and expelling breath at the same time. Per tradition, only aboriginal males can play the didgeridoo.

Olive Knight, aka Kankawa Nagarra, is a Walmatjarri and Bunuba woman who was born in the Great Sandy Desert, and is known for for gospel blues. The repetitive nature of the Blues “reminded her of sounds she had been exposed to growing up, such as the nullanulla (hunting sticks), which are used to mark time in ancient ceremonies.” In the 1960s, Olive helped to develop the Walmatjarri dictionary in an effort to officially preserve her language.

New book, Writing in the Sand, explores the band behind the hit songs 'Treaty' and 'Djapana' - ABC Darwin

Yothu Yindi

The first aboriginal performer to become popular was Jimmy Little, with his debut 1964 song “The Royal Telephone.” “Treaty” by Yothu Yindi is the song considered to have brought aboriginal music as a whole to popularity. It was released in 1991.

Aboriginal Segment:
Djambaku // Waak Waak Djungi
Traditional Didgeridoo // Lewis Burns
Nyantu Yangka Parla Jarranyangany Ngarpuwu // Olive Knight
Royal Telephone // Jimmy Little
Treaty // Yothu Yindi

Australian country, also known as “bush music” or “bushband” is more influenced by Celtic music than American country. “Waltzing Matilda,” a traditional country tune, is considered by many to be the unofficial anthem of Australia. It supposedly originated in 1895, and in 1903, Marie Cowan changed some of the lyrics and wrote a new variation of the tune, and published it in sheet music as an advertising jingle for Billy tea. The National Film and Sound Archive says that there are more recordings of “Waltzing Matilda” than any other Australian song.

Country Sample:
Waltzing Matilda // Slim Dusty

Samantha Sang – Emotion / When Love Is Gone (1978, Vinyl) - Discogs One of the most fun things to learn when researching Australian music is just how many bands and artists are actually from here. Some of the most surprising to me were AC/DC (pronounced “Acca Dacca” down under), Olivia Newton John, Sia, Keith Urban, Kylie Minogue, and INXS.

One band I was aware of previously from Australia is the Bee Gees. The group of three brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb started in 1958. Initially, their work fell into more of an Australian country sound, however they soon moved to disco. The release of their 1977 Saturday Night Fever soundtrack marked a turning point in their career. Samantha Sang from Australia met up with the Bee Gees in the UK. They collaborated on “Emotion,” which became Sang’s break out song.

Marcia Hines was an American-born Australian artist with Jamaican heritage. She faced widespread racism in the beginning of her career. R&B and soul music had a significant impact on Australian’s music, although in many cases Australian radio refused to play it. Ike and Tina Turner’s single “River Deep Mountain High” was pulled from radio stations becuase it was “too noisy and too black.”

Disco/Soul Segment:
Be There in the Morning // Renee Geyer
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours // Marcia Hines
Emotion // Samantha Sang, Bee Gees

Grunge has simultaneous origins in Australia and Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop was a Seattle based record label known for putting out some of the first grunge. Several Australian bands, including Cosmic Psychos and Feedtime are cited as precursors to grunge, their music influencing the Seattle scene through the college radio broadcasts of Sub Pop founder Jonathan Poneman and members of Mudhoney.

Grunge Segment:
74 Seconds // Cosmic Psychos
You Don’t Know My Mind // Feedtime

Book Altimate Grunge | 90s Rock Show | Sydney | NSW

Indie/Modern Rock Segment:
Void // Beaches
Parasite // Earache
Hey, Did I Do You Wrong? // San Cisco
Run for Daze // Dark Bells

Wednesday, July 19, 2023 | Posted in Continental Drift, Playlists, Shows | Comments Off

continental drift 5/3/23: iceland

Today we are making the trek to Iceland. There will be baseball during drift next week, meaning this is the last episode of continental drift for quite some time. I’m talking about July 19th. I graduate this weekend, and I’d just like to say that if this is my last episode, it’s been a great run. Reviving this show has been truly a pleasure, and I’ve learned so much. Ethnomusicology is so important! (Fear not, Continental Drift will be revived by my friend and collaborator, Carolyne). Find the playlist for this episode here.

Iceland is a dual ocean Nordic island country spanning both the North Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean. It is the most sparsely populated country in Europe, with less than 10 people per square mile. In fact, there are only 8 other countries in the world that are more sparse (can you guess #1? It is Greenland). Their official language is Icelandic, a Germanic language most similar to Norwegian.

The idea that Iceland was named to discourage settlement on verdant land is a myth. In fact, it was originally named Snæland, or snow land, because it was snowing when Norse settlers first arrived, and then renamed Iceland after viking Flóki Vilgerðarson arrived.

Young Bjork

Iceland’s most famous musician is probably Björk. Björk Guðmundsdóttir’s career started when she was just 11 when a recording of her singing at a school recital was broadcast on RUV, then Iceland’s only radio station. Björk has released music as recently as 2022, and is also a climate activist in Iceland. NY’s Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective exhibition dedicated to her in 2015.

Lots of literature on Icelandic music talk about the “Bjork effect.” This is essentially getting at the public perception of Icelandic music since she became internationally popular, which is one of “eccentricity.” One article said it’s as if Icelandic music says to people, “Come to Iceland. We have elves.”

I’m not going to refute the Björk effect, because I found it to be actually quite relevant.

We’re going to start with classical music. Icelandic classical music is different from other traditions, and other samples I’ve played on drift, because it is distinctly modern. Classical music was late to arrive in Iceland, only taking hold in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The innovation is still happening today, resulting in a robust contemporary classical scene. Lots of it, you will find, is very “Iceland.” I know I keep saying that, but if you don’t know what I mean already, you’re about to. The imagery is very rich.

From Iceland — Sounds From The Quiet Place: Composer Hafdís Bjarnadóttir Sees Music In Everything

Hafdís Bjanadótir

Classical segment:
From Beacon to Beacon // Hafdís Bjanadótir (composer, blues guitar), Nordic Affect (Icelandic chamber ensemble)
The Gospel of Mary: Gospel Text II // Hugi Guðmundsson, Aarhus Sinfonietta, Schola Cantorum Reykjavicensis, Hörður Áskelsson
Clean Teeth // Magnús Jóhann (composer, producer, keyboardist), Skúli Sverrisson
Loom – Sunrise Session II // Ólafur Arnalds (composer), Reykjavík Recording Orchestra

Post punk is not a genre I have covered extensively on drift before, but it is such a good one. Post punk emerged in the late 70s from the punk scene. It took a lot of influence from rock, but incorporated elements of funk, electronic, jazz, and even disco. A lot of post punk, like the punk that came before it, was political at heart. Bjork was in a post punk band before the Sugarcubes, Tappi Tíkarrass, which was active from 1981-1983 (post punk’s prime). They certainly weren’t the only ones in Iceland.

Björk (keys) performing with Tappi Tikarrass

Post-punk segment:
Flughoppið // Purrkur Pillnikk (“The Plane Jump”)
I Don’t Like Your Style // Baraflokkurinn (“The Bar Party”)
Autopilot // russian.girls

Þú og ég has been called “the embodiment of disco music in iceland.” HLH flokkurinn was dedicated to the 60s, though released music in the late 70s. Interesting, because I consider them to sound a lot like ABBA.

Sumargleðin was not an actual band but a group of entertainers under the direction of Ragnar Bjarnason. They were very popular among rural Icelandic people, to the extent that people planned their summer vacations with regard to when the Summer Fun Ball was nearby.

Sumargleðin

Classic Pop Segment:
Í Reykjavíkurborg // Þú og ég (“In Reykjavik”)
Vertu ekki að plata mig // HLH flokkurinn (“Don’t Be Fooling Me”)
Ég fer í fríið // Sumargleðin (I’m Going on Vacation)

Modern Pop/ Indie Segment:
Stop In the Name of Love // Bang Gang
Random Haiku Generator // Sin Fang, Sóley, Örvar Smárason

Wednesday, May 3, 2023 | Posted in Continental Drift, Playlists, Shows | Comments Off

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Continental Drift

continental drift 8/28/23- turkey

continental drift 8/23/23- jamaica

continental drift 8/2/23- egypt

Continental Drift 7/19/23- Australia

continental drift 5/3/23: iceland

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