"Dadawa - Sister Drum" Chinese Tibetan music

[Bellamy]

I'd like to introduce some Chinese Tibetan music to you. "Dadawa - Sister Drum" is one of the best made Chinese albums. I upload the last track "The Turning Scripture". Hope you'll like it.

 

Dadawa: 'Sister Drum'

 

The best-selling album ever made in China, "Sister Drum" (Sire/ Elektra) straddles the border between majesty and kitsch.

 

The album was written after Dadawa (Zhu Zheqin), a singer from Guangzhou Province, visited Tibet with He Yuntian, a composer and producer, and He Xunyou, a lyricist.

 

In songs that allude to Tibetan beliefs, He Yuntian has set her voice to resonant sustained synthesizers. Yet there's just as much influence from Western pop: blues progressions, U2's echoing guitars, even giddy girl-group harmonies. Dadawa can sound sweet and girlish, or hushed and awestruck; she can also belt with a rocker's rawness.

 

Some songs, like the meditative "Home Without Shadow" and the driving "Zhouma of Zhoumas," live up to their internationalist ambitions, making Dadawa China's answer to Enya and Peter Gabriel. Other tunes capsize under choirs and overwrought vocals.

 

"Sister Drum" arrives with inescapable political overtones. China occupied Tibet in 1950, and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's Buddhist leader, has been in exile since 1959. For a Western listener, it is hard to tell whether the album represents a Chinese claim on Tibetan culture, sympathy for Tibet or simply musicians seeking spiritually tinged exotica.

 

"The purpose of the journey is not to explore Tibet, but to explore ourselves," the producer writes. But the final song, "The Turning Scripture," incorporates Buddhist monks' chanting and trumpets alongside a pompous orchestral anthem, with lyrics that praise "the piety that can't be broken" and "the dream that can't be scattered."

 

As China suppresses Tibet, its hit album may hint at a troubled conscience.

http://www.amazon.com/Sister-Drum-Dadawa/dp/B000002HL6

 

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000002HL6.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Warning: Don't turn volume too high, or your speakers and ears may get damaged.

 

"Dadawa - The Turning Scripture" Download link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/7oev83

[Céline's Blues]

Merci Bellami.

[Bellamy]

Merci Bellami.               

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Have you heard of it before? Do you like it?

[Célinefull]

I didn't mind it - a little out there (not as much as Siur's sig) but okay nevertheless.

[Krys]

it sounds quite okay. thanks for the warning. it was loud at the end

[Céline's Blues]

Merci Bellami.               

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Have you heard of it before? Do you like it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You know I like this type of music very much. I enjoyed it.