1.03.2007
Four Folk Tunes of Pakistan
Fore Thoughts Four Folk Tunes of Pakistan 7" (The Gramophone Company of Pakistan Limited, 196?)
Welcome to 2007! Into this new year, Crud Crud will hold true to the principles that brought us here: An affection for absurdity, a love of ill-places sound effects, a dedication to surrealistic extremism, and an embrace of musical miscegination, of course all vetted for top quality and premium entertainment. To prove how dedicated to this task, nay, oath I am, I present to you one of my most prized records: Four Folk Tunes of Pakistan by 'Fore Thoughts.'
Recorded in the early 1960s, this Pakistani foursome play "a successful and happy marriage of Eastern melodies to western musical instruments." All songs composed by Suhail Rana, using traditional folk tunes for the basis of the songs. The result of this marriage is a strange and wonderful sound. While the instrumentation sounds familiar, the rhythms and melodies, the music that emerges is unique. This result shouldn't be any surprise to those of you who have turned on to the recent batch of releases by labels such as Sublime Frequecies. The 60s pop music of Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries, as well as Turkey, shows a richness that comes when traditional sounds are filtered through rock & roll and Western pop. One of the big appeals to me is that this musical miscegination tends to operate without a rigid set of rules. "That isn't supposed to sound like that" is not a sentence uttered by these musicians. On a grander note, this mishmash is the promise of humanity, what we can achieve by exploring the Other while holding on to what makes us us.
A Voxx organ playing Pakistani folk tunes is as nearly as odd a pairing as me finding a instrumental pop/folk record from Karachi (on blue vinyl!) in a dusty record store called called Ye Olde Record Shoppe in Diamond Springs, California. Ye Olde is one of my favorite stores ever. No longer among us, the store was in a primitive strip mall in the most unlikely place, Diamond Springs. A former Gold Rush town, Diamond Springs sits about 30 miles east of Sacramento in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Today, it serves as an Edge City for Sacramento; its population booming with conservatives fleeing the "sinful" cities and escaping the "Browning" of California. So how in the hell does an obscure 7" of Pakistani surf music wind up in White Flight country? I am sure there is a logical explanation but I would rather be bemused.
Happy New Year!
# posted by Scott Soriano : 17:49
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Unreal. UNREAL. And really, really great, too. Especially Shahbaz Qalander. This record somehow sums up the idiosyncratic (yet cohesive) aesthetic of your site perfectly. A great choice for the top of 2007.
# posted by 
: 11:16
: 11:16
Yeah, what Danny said. Makes me wanna go out and get some biryani and spicy kebabs and some chapatis or Nan and wash it down with molson.
Good sound quality too, im impressed.
Whats next?
Good sound quality too, im impressed.
Whats next?
# posted by : 16:11
: 16:11
Now this is the sort of stuff to be treasured. Must... go to.. local junk shop, who has dusty stacks of old records behind furniture...
Love your site & ethos
--ionplayer
Love your site & ethos
--ionplayer
# posted by : 15:31
: 15:31
What a small world it can be
Yes my name is Anis Ahmed living in London UK -It is so heartening to know after all we have not gone out into oblivian. I played the Keyboard in this recording and all these numbers were kept alive by being played live every evening when our band "Fore Thoughts" was in its Heydays playing for Hotel Metropole Karachi Pakistan
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Yes my name is Anis Ahmed living in London UK -It is so heartening to know after all we have not gone out into oblivian. I played the Keyboard in this recording and all these numbers were kept alive by being played live every evening when our band "Fore Thoughts" was in its Heydays playing for Hotel Metropole Karachi Pakistan
# posted by : 17:20
: 17:20<< Home
