Indonesia: Songs from the Islands of Flores &Solor

Flores and Solor are part of a chain of narrow volcanic islands located just west of Timor Leste, the administrative capital of the region. This fascinating CD reveals the unique vocal styles of the eastern part of Flores island and on Solor – an island whose music was hitherto little known or researched and which is, sadly, likely to disappear soon. The music here was recorded in the field in 1992 and from 2006 to 2007 by Josephine Simonnot and Dana Rappoport and they cover much of the music performed by dialect speakers of two languages, Sikka and Lamaholot.

The tracks are divided between two-part (diphonic) singing found mainly in the west and one-part (monophonic) in the east. The informative liner notes reveal that as you move among Lamaholot speakers from west to east, different styles emerge; and also that songs are used to accompany the five stages of rice growing and to illustrate important local myths. The singing is really quite something, and the only point of reference for many Western listeners will be the polyphonic singing in countries such as Bulgaria. The brilliant way many of these singers work together brings to mind the vocal dexterity of barber shop quartets: they must work very hard on their techniques to develop the ability to sing together, intertwining their voices in such a beautifully harmonic fashion.