Customer Reviews

Rough Guide to the Music of Central Asia

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you want to hear something totally new, listen to this. It's all from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgistan and Tajikistan, with echoes of Afghanistan, Turkey and Mongolia. (It's delightful to try and guess which countries each song is from, and spot the simialerities between them.) It's vaguely simialer to Iranian music, at times, especially with EXTENSIVE use (a VERY extensive selection here) of songs on various long necked lutes like the dutar, setar, dombra, rabab, and many more. (They should have had pictures in the booklet of all the lutes - would have been useful)

Variety is the key word here. There's classical music, a lot of folk music, an awesome rendition of a Rumi poem by the bard singer Davlatmand (one of the best tracks), shamanistic trance music played on fiddle and lute, pop and folk-pop crossovers (most of the pop is pretty creative in mixing traditional and western instrruments), Tajik rap, instrumental bands, brass and violins (track 4 sounds like something from Romania) and lots of lute solos. I think about ten of the 19 tracks are instrumental, whether it's a lute solo, an instrumental duet, or a folk orchestra. I usually prefer vocal songs, and there are some interesting styles of singing as well. The liner notes are very informative.

This is a very rare project, showing the music of these strangely obscure countries. Why don't we hear more about these countries in the west? This disc makes you wonder. It brings to life a little know region.

If you like Iranian or world music this is something new and refreshing, and fascinating. You can say that you have some music from Tajistan and Kyrgistan, and baffle you're friends. Recomended.

This CD was my first step into the exploration of the music of Central Asia. I stumbled on this over at the library (it's a great place to stumble on things). I'm not too familiar with the music of the "Stans", but this CD has proven to be a great introduction to this Westerner music freak. Overall, it's very diverse with both traditional and modern sounds. I find it interesting how some of the modern musicians incorporate those ancient sounds into modern music.

OK it's tough to get past the opening track by Ulytau, which is truly spectacular, but the rest of this CD is unique. btw the Ulytau cd is available on Amazon. You're not likely to find a better conglomeration of tunes from such a diverse part of the world. Anything else by Rough Guides is gonna have more ethnic coherence and (likely) less musical interest. I am a serious fan of this CD and think that the various countries and ethnicities represented are excellently so. Listen to the clips and then get it

this album will do nothing for the brilliant music of central asia.it Is lame and aimed at westerners who know nothing about real world music.

if you really want to hear something that is the real deal try tengir too: mountain music of Kyrgyzstan or the music of Afghanistan by anthology of world music. then build from there.

these are real great albums made by real salt of the earth central asians, not pop wannebes like on this rough guide album. When I heard this rough guide album I thought the rough guide people have a rough idea of central asia, nothing more. the quality says it all in the title. DONT BUY IF YOU LOVE REAL MUSIC!!!

I borrow the cd from my local library... i listened to every track but found some of them almost unbearably monotonic. for example the 12th track - Jygach Ooz Komuz - Kambarkan Folk Ensemble (try the preview) sounded like someone not playing music, but some types of machine. maybe i just need to get used to such music. and there are of course a few good songs. but overall i am disappointed by this collection.