Thursday, April 16, 2009

Thai Classical Music - Funeral Music (Golden TS-2026)


This intense Thai cassette is a dear favorite, and still leaves me with the same somber feeling that I had when I first heard it - but like my other Thai tapes, I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to a substantial explanation for the music. It's obviously mastered from vinyl, like many of the Thai classical music tapes out there. Also I was told that it's funeral music, which makes perfect sense. The saturated lament that opens side A sets the vibe with a weeping man's cries of sorrow over the loss of his friend, all accompanied by the piphat emsemble. What follows is a heavy spiral of blown out instrumental music and haunting pi solos - powerful stuff.  Cool open shutter photo for the cover art as well.  I would love to know more about this cassette - if anyone reading this can provide some insight into the story here, please leave a comment - I would be much obliged. 
  

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Update....

Peter, the man behind the incredibly cool 
monrakplengthai blog, posted this info in the comments:

"i think i can help you out with some context for this tape. you're right about it being funeral music; the style is "piphat mon", derived from the mon people, though now part of the thai repertoire, played (by thais) at funerals.. i'm not sure about historically how it acquired this position, other than through the clearly plaintive nature of the tunes.. this would be interesting to look into! there are no artists listed, only the description of the ensemble as a ปี่พาทย์มอญเครื่องใหญ่ (piphat mon khrueang yai), which indicates the size and instrumentation of the orchestra. this is a really excellent recording, i've never heard vocals like this! thanks so much for sharing."

here is the tracklist:
01. มอญร้องไห้ (mon ronghai)
02. มอญยกศพ (mon yok sop)
03. เชิญศพ (choen sop)
04. มอญประจำบ้าน (mon pracham ban)
05. มอญประจำวัด (mon pracham wat)
06. ธรณีกรรแสง (thorani kansaeng)
07. ธรณีกรรแสง (thorani kansaeng)
08. ดาวทอง (dao thong)
09. ย่าเล (ya le)
10. มอญโพกผ้า (mon phok pha)
11. เพลงแน (phleng nae)
12. พญาแบแล (phaya bae lae)
13. ดาวทอง (dao thong)
14. ย่าเล (ya le)

Thank You Peter!!! 
at

4 comments:

  1. peterApril 16, 2009 at 1:20 PM

    hey there!
    it's great to have found your site.. always exciting to meet people interested in old thai music (and thank you for the link as well)!
    i think i can help you out with some context for this tape. you're right about it being funeral music; the style is "piphat mon", derived from the mon people, though now part of the thai repertoire, played (by thais) at funerals.. i'm not sure about historically how it acquired this position, other than through the clearly plaintive nature of the tunes.. this would be interesting to look into! there are no artists listed, only the description of the ensemble as a ปี่พาทย์มอญเครื่องใหญ่ (piphat mon khrueang yai), which indicates the size and instrumentation of the orchestra. this is a really excellent recording, i've never heard vocals like this! thanks so much for sharing.

    here is the tracklist:
    01. มอญร้องไห้ (mon ronghai)
    02. มอญยกศพ (mon yok sop)
    03. เชิญศพ (choen sop)
    04. มอญประจำบ้าน (mon pracham ban)
    05. มอญประจำวัด (mon pracham wat)
    06. ธรณีกรรแสง (thorani kansaeng)
    07. ธรณีกรรแสง (thorani kansaeng)
    08. ดาวทอง (dao thong)
    09. ย่าเล (ya le)
    10. มอญโพกผ้า (mon phok pha)
    11. เพลงแน (phleng nae)
    12. พญาแบแล (phaya bae lae)
    13. ดาวทอง (dao thong)
    14. ย่าเล (ya le)

    & one other thing.. the mp3s don't seem to want to extract, although oddly enough i can listen to them as temp files! this is the only album i've downloaded from you that's had this problem

    ReplyDelete
  2. mattApril 16, 2009 at 11:51 PM

    Wow, Thank You Peter! More info than I had hoped would show up. Btw your blog is a total inspiration- Thank You for that too! If you're ok with it, I'd like to copy some of you comment to my post. Wonderful information.

    Also, I changed the download with a new .rar
    Anyone, please let me know if it's not working alright - I want to get this one right.
    Cheers,
    Matt

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 25, 2010 at 10:09 AM

    You're doing a great thing for those of us who love the music of the area. Keep it up,and enjoy your time back in Indonesia.

    ReplyDelete
  4. outrenoirJuly 28, 2011 at 10:08 AM

    thankyou this is amazing

    and thanks to Peter for the info, it's nigh on impossible investigating (Googling) info on tapes like this not knowing the language

    ReplyDelete