Central African Republic

Louis Sarno is an American romantic from Newark, New Jersey. Idly listening to a Flemish radio station one night in Amsterdam in 1985, he heard a recording of some pygmy singing. He was immediately transfixed. It was one of those rare moments which alters a person's life permanently.

Without any real idea of what he was doing, he bought a one-way ticket to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. From there he took a bus that was prophetically labeled 'Ainsi donc la vie' (& so there’s your life). He found himself in the village of Bomandjombo. From there it was only a short distance to the pygmy settlement of Amopolo, which was to become his home. Louis Sarno is married to a Bayakan. He lives in the forests of Central Africa.

To learn more about Sarno’s experiences, he relates all in his memoir, Song from the Forest: My Life Among the Ba-Benjellé Pygmies (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1993). Additionally, there is a movie based on his life called Oka! (‘Oka’ is Bayaka for ‘listen’). While living with the Bayaka (how the Ba-Benjelle refer to themselves, rather than pygmies), Sarno made voluminous field recordings.

Ellipsis Arts has released two book that contain CDs of this music: Echoes Of The Forest: Music Of The Central African Pygmies, & Bayaka: The Extraordinary Music of the Ba-Benjellé Pygmies.

Echoes CD contains eighteen tracks recorded by three different anthropologists over a span of forty years. Bayaka CD is an hour long with eleven tracks recorded by Sarno & Krause.

What I am presenting here are soundscapes from recordings made by Louis Sarno & Dr. Bernie Krause, a world famous musician, author, soundscape recordist, & bio-acoustician, who coined the term biophony. Krause helped define the structure of soundscape ecology. Biophony is the collective sound vocal non-human animals create in each given environment. The study of natural soundscapes is called soundscape ecology.

"Louis Sarno's work is so important," says Krause, "because it conveys for the first time, the connection between rain forest, its sounds and the music created by those intimately joined to all its resources."

These recordings have not only the songs & music of the Bayaka, but the sounds of the insects, the wind, the forest itself. These are unedited original recordings from master tapes.

Various – Music of the Ba-Benjellé Bayaka, Sarno & Krause’s Master Copies 2.

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Tracklist –

krekels zang percussie

krekels en grondboog

bos en fluit

bos en zang

bos & geedah & percussie

zang

lied & percussie

zang & percussie

zang & drums

bos en mbyo

bos en harp

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More field recordings. This is a wonderful old gem from the French Ocora label. While the previous offering was the Ba-Benjellé, these are field recordings made in the Central African Republic of nine other ethnic groups of the region. I could tell you about these groups, but you can look them up for yourselves. I’m just the DJ here.

 Various ‎– Musique Centrafricaine, Collection Radiodiffusion Outre-Mer, Ocora OCR 12, 1968. 

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Face A –

Bagandou - Xylophone et Sanza Bagandou

Babinga - Musique de Chasse Babinga

Linda - Musique de Danse avec Xylophone Linda

Broto - Orchestre de Trompes Broto

Ndokpa - Exemple de Langage Instrumental Ndokpa

Ndokpa – Xylophone Ndokpa

Dakpa – Chant Dakpa pour l’Abbatage d’un Arbre

Face B –

Isongo – Chant de Femme Isongo

Zande – Ensemble Asande avec Xylophone

Babinga – Chant de Chasse Babinga

Dakpa – Musique Dakpa pour Attirer les Termites

Bofi - Chant d’Enfants Bofi

Bianda – Compliante Bianda

Enjoy boyo,

NØ