Handing over the mic to artists/musicians who break down their new albums track by track/share the thought process behind the creation. Today we’ll hear from Greg Nieuwsma (Sawak) whose first solo album Travel Log Radio is out now on TQN-aut label.
All the sound sources on this record came from field recordings I made while on travels over the last several years. Some of them were digitally manipulated and mangled, while some of them were left in a more natural form.
Lured by the prospect of good weather and good food, my wife and I have been eyeballing Italy for a while, and a year and a half ago started making occasional exploratory reconnaissance trips. First to Puglia (somewhere around the Achille’s heel), then to the Cinque Terre region (near Pisa).
In Lecce there was an African playing kora busking on the street, and a trumpeter played at what looked to be some sort of official civic ceremony or opening. Organs played in churches as people wandered in to play or simply have a look.
Waves lapped at the cost. Down at the seaside we hopped a bus up the mountain to San Bernardino, where the wind rattled through the wires of small cable-cars meant to transport grapes and olives. It was bliss, and both times we left satisfied but not satiated.
The first time I went to Morocco was in early 2001; I went with my fiancé. Nine months after we got back, she was my wife and she gave birth to our first son. Fast forward fifteen years—my son was a teen-ager and the two of us went back to the point of origin, so to speak.
To say Marrakech is a feast for the senses would be an understatement; it is an assault. The pulsating center of it all is the Djmaa el F’naa, where in the evening 20 to 30 groups of street musicians belt it out in a plethora of styles. I came in eager anticipation of the gnawa asters strumming their guembris doing call and response with the chorus of krakeb (castanet) players and was not disappointed. But I was also surprised at the presence of other things, like…banjos!?
My son and I ended up in a music store previously visited by the likes of Jimmy Page and Keith Richards, if the legends can be trusted. It was there I bought some krakebs, Sala gave us a quick lesson in gnawa rhythms, and then jammed with my son who was playing Nirvana covers on a small lute while Sala drummed along.
Later in the evening we’d eat tagine and drink mint tea in a roof top restaurant, our meal briefly interrupted by the muezzin’s call from the mosque next door.
It was work that finally brought me to India, though I’d been wanting to go for a long time.
And when they sent me, I scheduled the trip to go to Mumbai at Holi. Eventually I ended up celebrating it with a couple of coworkers and members of the Indian Coast guard and their families, who had kindly invited us to join them. I was a bit hesitant to drink the lassi they offered, but I did, and in the end suffered no ill effects. Most celebrations happened behind fences, where there were drum bands playing. One day I set off to pick up a souvenir, an electric tanpura (which made it onto several Sawak recordings) and coming back to the hotel I had to work my way past a wedding band.
The next year I went back, this time getting the opportunity to go to Kolkata as well. This time I was hoping to bring back a bulbul tarang (an Indian instrument that looks to be the result of a three-way love affair between a lap steel, a sitar and a typewriter). Though my visits to the music shops weren’t fruitful in that respect, I did see a lawnmower size drum machine that had to play loud enough to cover the lawnmower-type engine that powered it.
The guy in the show said it was meant to welcome the faithful to temples. Back in Mumbai, I visited some ancient Buddhist cave-temples where people spontaneously burst into song because of the unique acoustics. As for the infomercials and taxi cabs, well I’d rather not get into that.
I’m American, but I haven’t lived there in over twenty years. Because I live in Poland, I guess I could be called a Polish immigrant, though the migration is the other way around what most Americans would associate with being a Polish immigrant. Still, this context gave my visit to Ellis island a deep resonance. It was raining; the no-nonsense ferry workers quickly and efficiently herded us on to and off of the boat, the stories inside the museum were
riveting, at turns inspiring and heartbreaking. Later I wandered the city: a dance contest on Washington square, a basketball game, a bridge in central part, under which the saxophones resonated in a wholly different way.
After New York, I went to Chicago. I grew up in the Chicago area, so it was a sort of homecoming. Street preachers advised passers-by on how to take a better path. There were street drummers playing on plastic buckets, at the train station speakers beside the platforms broadcast their respective track numbers in order to help the blind.
In a sense, every journey starts with a sort of blindness, and the journey can be judged a good one if at tend your vision has improved. Inside the station an Asian couple was taking wedding photo on the steps, and several groups of Mennonites were waiting around to make their connection. Rail workers offered advice of their own, helping them find the right lines to stand in, pointing them towards the right platform. Everyone had been somewhere,
everyone was going somewhere, and many were there helping each other find their way. A saxophone blew some wistful notes, providing the soundtrack.
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