Reuploaded by request 04/18/2026
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.
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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," sez 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.
decryption codes in comments
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
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.
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