Search - Various Artists :: Cambodia: Music of the Ramayana 2

Who recorded this??

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 05/16/2001

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I will never understand why Ocora released this cd. Actually, what I will never understand is why the recording quality is so awful. This performance was recorded in France in 1964 and the sound is atrocious. I have field-recordings of Indigenous musics made in the 1930s and '40s that sound much better than this.

What makes it even worse is that this is indeed great music... or at least I get the feeling this is great music from the little bit that I can hear of it. The only times this cd sounds halfway decent are during the sections where just the chorus of females is singing. What I think this horrible sound comes down to is microphone placement. Whoever recorded this had no clue how to record this style of music. Throughout the cd all we hear of the flutes are a very faint squeaking in the background. The drums, when struck with any force at all, sound totally saturated and they distort. The wood xylophone-type instruments sound somewhat okay, but still all we ever hear on this cd is about a 30% picture of what was actually being played.

This cd deserves one star, but out of respect for the musicians I gave it two. This would have been a great concert to attend but this recording is an extremely poor document of it. Now I just need to look around for a cd of this style of Cambodian music that has been recorded by engineers who understand and respect the music."