Olivia Wyatt - Staring Into The Sun [2012] [ethiopian tribal music]

Part 2 of interview with director Olivia Wyatt about the making of her film, Staring Into the Sun.

            A contemporary survey of the tribal music of Ethiopia. Recorded in 2009 by Olivia Wyatt, this double LP showcases an array of mind-blowing sounds from the "land of eternal sunshine." 

       Presented in this visually stunning gatefold are audio examples ranging from remote tribes -- of the Ethiopian highlands, the lower Omo and the Great Rift Valley -- to their electric analogues in the sweaty beerhalls of Addis Ababa. 

           This collection features songs from the Azmari, poet-musicians who play the krar (ancient lyre) and whose song repertoire includes everything from comic improvisation to lyrical elegiac, the Borana whose work songs are a transcendental polyphonic singing that stops time, and the Dirashe whose syncopated panpipes are as otherworldly as anything ever heard. 

          Other selections include music from the Mursi, Druze, Gedeo, Konso, and Tsemay tribes as well as some fine examples of amplified roots music from the capital from the Habesha 2000 Band. This is a limited edition one-time pressing double LP housed in a gatefold full color tip-on sleeve with gorgeous Polaroid shots from Olivia Wyatt.

              In 2009, filmmaker/photographer Olivia Wyatt traveled to Ethiopia to document a music and dance event called the Festival of 1000 Stars. Things didn't quite go according to plan. On her arrival in the country, Wyatt discovered the Ethiopian government had canceled the event. So Wyatt instead headed out to visit 13 tribes, whose performances Staring Into the Sun documents in a DVD, a CD, notes, and photographs. It's an extraordinarily careful, comprehensive package, featuring stories about close calls with authorities, comments on the distinctive qualities of each tribe, and details about the various instruments used in the recordings.

          The hour-long DVD is the best way most of us will have to witness the music of the people Wyatt visited. 

       With visuals as hypnotic as the performances, she deftly illustrates how music seeps into many different parts of life. The opening scene is one of the most spectacular, showing members of the Borana tribe in southern Ethiopia chanting a cyclical polyphonic song as they pass up buckets of water from a multi-level well; Wyatt's shots skillfully match the repetitive nature of this backbreaking work. Scenes of spiritual possession and ceremonial whipping further demonstrate music's role in ritual practices. 

       The sheer breadth of styles in the film also extends to more commercial fare-- often featuring keyboards and synthesized drums-- shot directly from TV sets. One clip even features a band decked out in military garb and posing with guns. That stands in stark contrast to the the scenes of the Tsemay tribe, where kids and adults bounce around in a circle to an uplifting song. The big highlight here is the discordant synchronized panpipe playing of the Dirashe tribe in the Great Rift Valley; the music feels like it could career out of control at any moment, but it never does.

          The accompanying CD is less essential than the film, though it just about works as a standalone item. Listing no artists or tracks, the disc is simply a collection of recordings Wyatt made. Some of them feature the trilling female vocals that are a staple of the region; others are built around an open-ended structure of loosely handclapped rhythms. The masterfully off-kilter panpipe players of the Dirashe tribe resurface in a nearly eight-minute excerpt of a piece that presumably stretched on far longer. The disc's common thread comes through its ceaselessly looping vocal chants, which are mesmerizingly easy to get lost in-- just as the performers themselves may have done to reach such a trance-inducing state. Staring Into the Sun shows how that kind of loosening is simply one of many purposes music can have for a group of people.

           The latest from Sublime Frequencies is a massive cd/dvd/book set, compiled by photographer / filmmaker Olivia Wyatt on a recent trip to Ethiopia, planned to coincide with a music festival - which the government abruptly cancelled for fear of the musicians being exploited. So instead, Wyatt travelled into the bush, to compile this sonic/visual travelogue of the music and musicians, the people and places of the various tribes of Ethiopia, and it's of course breathtaking. The music, heady and hypnotic, joyous and emotional, the sounds varying dramatically from tribe to tribe, but music being ubiquitous, weddings, ceremonies, rituals, drawing water from the well, on television, in living rooms, very rhythmic, mostly vocal drive, but with lots of hand clapping, wildly bowed stringed instruments, vocals chanted, shouted, call and response, super mesmerizing, many of the tribes utilize whistles and panpipes, and the music they make is incredible, otherworldly and impossibly lush, sounding like some modern 20th century classical composition in many cases, while actual bands to rock out, and get surprisingly soulful and funky. A compilation like this must have been so impossible to compile, how on earth to whittle down what must have ben days of recordings to just an hour, but the tracks chosen are amazing, and make us want to hear so much more. 

           Both the cd and the dvd (more on the dvd in a second) are housed in a cd sized hard cover book, which includes extensive liner notes on Wyatt's trip to Ethiopia, but also 117 Polaroid photos Wyatt took on her trip, of people, places, musicians, villages, an incredible visual feast for the eyes. And then there's the dvd, which features a 60 minute film, which in its won way is structured like the video version of Wyatt's Polaroids, with many still shots, video portraits, as well as some incredible footage, some highlights include so many different lots of singing and dancing, sometimes in traditional tribal dress, often in western t-shirts and shorts, one of the most amazing sequences if of men and women working drawing water from a well, passing buckets from person to person, their worksongs so hypnotic and beautiful, then there's a super wild psychedelic guitar freakout with one woman doing some of the craziest, most ecstatic hair swirling / headbanging we've ever seen, there's footage of men feeding wild hyenas in the middle of the night, often right out of their own mouths, snippets from Ethiopian television with wild MTV style videos, fantastic tribal folks songs with synchronized dances and lots of whistles, dancing girls making music with just the clank and jangle of her jewelry, in fact lots of dances that involve the jangle of jewelry, men smoking in dark rooms watching television, intimate performances in living rooms and so much more. 

       So incredible, sonically, visually, culturally, easily one of our favorite Sublime Frequencies releases for sure. 

A1 Borana Tribe* – Borana Singing Wells 3:32

A2 Konso Tribe* – Konso Lyre Song 4:02

A3 Tsemay Tribe* – Tsemay Song 0:53

A4 Habesha 2000 Band – Habesha Traditional Song 1 2:20

B1 Dirashe Tribe* – Dirashe Syncopated Panpipes 7:51

B2 Azmari (2) – Masinko Song 4:08

B3 Dirashe Tribe* – Dirashe Drum Song 3:27

C1 Mursi Tribe* – Mursi Song 3:55

C2 Dirashe Tribe* – Dirashe Lyre Dance 5:47

C3 Gedeo Tribe* – Gedeo Vocals 2:45

C4 Habesha 2000 Band – Habesha Traditional Song 2 2:53

D1 Konso Tribe* – Konso Lyre & Percussion Song 4:11

D2 Dorze Tribe* – Dorze Song 4:11

D3 Gedeo Tribe* – Gedeo Lyre & Percussion Song 2:41

D4 Habesha 2000 Band – Habesha Traditional Song 3 4:43