Various - The Secret Museum Of Mankind: Central Asia Ethnic Music Classics 1925 - 1948

originally released in 1995 on cd only, outernational records now reissues the central asia volume of the legendary the secret museum of mankind series on in a deluxe 2lp gatefold presentation limited to 1,000 copies. includes extensive sleeve notes and rare photos. produced by hisham mayet of sublime frequencies and compiled by archivist pat conte. remastered directly from the original 78s by richard nevins... "no world music fan should be without these packages which are full of unadulterated, pre-westernized exotic delights." —jazz times. . this volume from central asia has to be one of the most revelatory volumes yet presented. concentrating on a singular geographic region, this volume unearths some of the rarest recorded artifacts of music from the central asian countries of mongolia, uzbekistan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, the caucasus region, tadjikistan, azerbaijan and others. of all the recent excavation projects inspired by our voracious musical culture, none is more fascinating than pat conte's secret museum series for yazoo. until now, a western listener's familiarity with ethnic music from the distant past has depended on unsexy field recordings of relatively recent vintage, produced in a spirit of near-scientific inquiry by anthropologically-minded musicologists. when the commercial record business really began to expand in the late '20s however, just about every national style of music was sought out and captured for a growing marketplace. this was true "world music," dressed in its sunday best perhaps as performed by ambitious locals, but still more vital than the academic, folklorist approach that followed.