Sunday, April 12, 2009

Thai Cassette - Klong Yao/Molam (FOUR'S 224)


Unfortunately I cannot speak Thai, nor read it - but I have a good handful of Thai cassettes. It often makes for mysterious listening. The music still sounds great. Molam in particular seems to connect wonderfully with quite a few listeners outside the kingdom. Here's a very nice molam cassette to check out - one from among the seemingly endless catalog of Molam recordings floating around out there. Enjoy!

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Update:
Turns out that the music on this tape is a Klong Yao/Molam hybrid of sorts - very interesting.
Check out the comments for more...
Thanks Peter!

3 comments:

peter said...

this is a really nice tape!
the cover actually identifies the music as กลองยาว (klong yao) rather than molam.. klong yao ensembles (named for the lead instrument) are somewhat of a pan-thai style, but have gained particular footing in isaan, and often mix with local styles, such as molam (as you noticed here)!

like with what often feels like the majority of folk & calssical recordings, no artists are listed.

matt said...

Hey Peter,
Thanks again for the knowledge, and checking things out! I'm going to update this post some for more clarity.

I now know why I like this tape so much - the klong lao! I have lot's of klong yao cassettes and love 'em, but I never made the connection with the music on this tape, it just sounded like awesome Molam. Very illuminating and interesting to see the pieces fit together. Incidentally, this tape is one of the first Thai tapes I ever bought - picked it up in 1997 at a market in Hat Yai of all places!

zhao said...

love the molam sound. looking forward to listening to this even if it's not exactly molam... cheers