BKK Vinyl, the second batch.

Took the pictures sideways in an attempt to compensate for the Auto rotate. now they are all coming in upside down... nice. Some wierdies and some goodies in this track.
12. A sort of Silly disco track...

13. Awesome Synth/guitar track from the 80s in case you couldn't tell.

14. Some Really groovin Temple style morlam, put it all together because its the same groove throughout. put a slight silence between the two sides.

15. a couple of 70s funky tracks...

16. Some really nice Chorus based Temple Morlam.

17.Don't quite know what to call this, but its a killer track, sort of traditional. With a particularly beautiful label, on a really nice, semi-clear red acetate.

18.Super minimal percussion backed track. Temple style. Really beautiful female vocals.

19.Sick Thai version of Kung Fu fighting...

20. I have tons of awesome stuff from this double rabbit label... here's a song with a sweet reggae groove, not sure if thats the intention or not...

More still to come...

BKK Vinyl, the first batch.

Some rips from recent acquisitions here in BKK. Hours of digging, and you get the rewards...
Apoligies about the label orientation, cannot fix the mistake of Google's auto-rotate.
enjoy.

1. Super Funky track from Isan.... Dig the violin intro and strings....

2. Nice little Shout out track from Isan...

3. Two funky sides

4.Beautiful Traditional morlam just Kaen and Vocal...

5. Some killer Thai funk.

6.Some more funky goodies from Isan

7. Another funky Isan track

8.Super funky Indian groove strait out of Isan...

9. A Chill, but super groovin Luk-Thung track.

10. An excellent Morlam song featuring a rare lead saxophone.

11. Straight ahead Thai funk

More to come in the next couple of days, have around fifty 45s and more then ten 12s.
One of the great personal joys of digging through these old records, besides the incredible sounds i'm lucky enough to find, is the incredible aesthetic value of the record labels themselves...

Other news

Been off the radar for a bit, doing things other then digging for tunes, back on it soon, here's a little of what i've been up to in the meantime.

 Headed to BKK, now that this is finished.  Also have a record player now, so expect some vinyl rips in the next couple of days.

Ayutthaya Sessions + Bass

When i Played some of the recordings back to the guitarist, he immediately started laying down a bass track, so i switched around the SD cards so he could listen to the fist recording, while i recorded the new bass track. Just threw them together in Audacity, think they are more or less synched. Enjoy!

 

Six String Morlam + Sato5+Bass Track by EarSphere

Ayutthaya Sessions

Had the amazing luck in Ayutthaya to run into an Amazing Guitarist who's doing some interesting stuff with Morlam style Phin playing on a 6 string guitar, whereas the Phin is typically a 3 string affair (the three highest strings) so hes playing the three high strings as a Phin and using the three lower strings to provide a foundation of bass for the Phin notes to play with/against. Before starting to play for this session he smoked a whole pill of yabba to the face, which might have contributed to the speed and dexterity at play here. We were also joined by Sato, the manager of our guesthouse, who is partially deaf but plays a mean drum. The nasty feedback you hear on some of the later tracks is from Sato's hearing aid, and is going straight into his ear, and seemed to be incredibly painful, half the set Sato played without his hearing aid and instead had a pair of headphones from my friends zoom with the monitors turned all the way up so he could hear. In the picture below you can see he has the headphones tied to his head with a t-shirt. His real drums were damaged in the recent flood, the skins were gone, so he is playing a home-made drum thats basically a wooden box with a thin plywood top. I returned to Ayutthaya recently and brought him new drum heads, because they are not available in Ayutthaya. The Last couple of tracks are sort of weird covers, and I believe two originals that he pulled out of nowhere in the end of the session.

o

Sato

Recording

 

Ayutthaya Sessions by EarSphere

I also have a bass track Recorded for one of the songs that i will overdub and post soon. Keep it locked more to come, Cambodia soon...

Acoustic Morlam Jam

After the second night at the Temple, the musicians invited me back to their house for more whiskey, food and some more music.

The Guy on the left is the Phin Player/vocalist for most of these recordings, as well as the soloist on most of the full band recordings, he is also responsible for the full color murals at the monastary. The guy in the middle was the youngest of the group, playing bass and percussion mostly, he spoke the best english. The third dude is the main MC as well as a percussionist, he was too drunk to sing by this point though, born in Lao in the 1950s.

Here are selected recordings from that night:

 

Morlam Acoustic Set at Home by EarSphere

In the end of the fourth track you can hear one of the guys (middle in the top picture) give me the headscarf i'm wearing  in the photo below, because i gave him my leather jacket at a previous show.

Second Night of Morlam band at Temple

Second night of performances at the temple, This time with an Erhu, and two hand drums.

 

Second Night of Morlam at the Temple by EarSphere

Later tracks are better, they start playing harder.
Later, the musicians, the guitarist and Phin player took me into the Temple, where they have been living while painting the inner sanctuary, the Phin player did the murals, while the guitarist was responsible for the gold stenciling on the columns. here's pics of the murals:

Recordings from an acoustic jam at the musicians house up soon