Ol Sing Blong Plantesen (Plantation Songs)

This unique collection of songs chronicles a sad 40-year period of Pacific history, from 1860 to the turn of the century, when thousands of Melanesian South Sea Islanders – mainly from Vanuatu (then called New Hebrides) and the Solomon Islands – were brought to Queensland plantations in Australia, as a source of cheap indentured farm labour. A practice commonly known as blackbirding, the caneworkers endured gruelling, slave-like conditions, often experiencing high rates of disease and death. During this sorrowful time of exploitation and alienation from their homelands, there was the establishment of a song and dance tradition among the labourers called salvesen (salvation), which combined African-American gospel hymns and spirituals learnt at plantation night schools, with customary Vanuatu circle dances. Still practised today, this album's field recordings were made in 2009-2012 in villages on the Vanuatu islands of Maskelyne and Epi by Australian ethnomusicologist Michael Webb. Three distinct repertoires of a capella folk choral singing – salvesen ami, bonani songs and congregational hymns – are showcased and the villagers’ enthusiastic and exhilarating renditions underscore their culture's history of transforming oppression into a righteous, optimistic and joyous noise.