Songs Of The Volcano

Bob Brozman / Papua New Guinea Stringbands – Songs of the Volcano (Riverboat)
Reviewed by Sadie O., 11/15/05
Sweet south seas guitar and vocals from Rabaul, a highly active volcanic island off the northeast coast of New Guinea, sounding like early Hawaiian recordings. Part of that is due to Bob Brozman, who plays a slide National guitar and is familiar with Hawaiian slack key, so it’s not for use as a strict ethnomusicalogical study, although there is much of interest in that area. There’s a lot of open and 5-key tuning, and one guitar typically plays a bassline while the others are strummed or plucked. The interesting thing is to see how people took guitars and adapted them to their musical needs without a lot of outside influence.
The accompanying DVD is fascinating, although I got a bit fed up with the focus on Brozman after a while – I had to laugh when he returned to the island triumphantly bearing the new CD, when no one had CD players, let alone much in the way of electricity.
No FCC. Pull up your beach blanket, stick the paper parasol in the coconut, sip your mai tai, and enjoy. (I like “D” numbers best)
A – Alir Pukai Stringband, more modern, more guitars and more lead vocals than chorus
E – Eagle Voice Band, fewer guitars more vocalists
G – Gilnata Stringband, earlier style with very few guitars and at least 10 singers.
D – Drop Sun Band, contemporary style, more guitars and fewer singers
L – Lions 2000 Stringband, ditto
1. A - Pretty and rhythmic, much redolent of hula, definite lead singer
2. E - Uptempo with chorus rather in background, more ukulele than slide.
3. G – opens with some tuning up, slow with more melodic lines in the guitar. Seems to be several musical pieces strung together. Eventually becomes very simple guitar bit with large chorus.
4. D – Very full sounding instrumentation, with nice “bass” line and ukulele. Midtempo with nice vocals – deeper than most of the bands.
5. L – midtempo, slide dominates, melody highly accessible to Westerners. Sweet and relaxing.
6. A – laid back, singer sounds female (although it didn’t look from the DVD as if that ever happened).
7. E – intro sounds like a Hank Williams song, but then we get the ukes and big chorus. It’s a luau!
8. L – Shakers add percussion, well differentiated instruments and vocals, fairly upbeat.
9. G – Takes a while getting started, then slow with definite “bass”, high vocals.
10. D – complex instrumentation, solo singer, a bit uptempo and a bit swingy.
11. E – a lot like track 7, uptempo. Nice guitar solo, probably Brozman.
12. L – a bit downbeat, nice solo vocal, see tracks 8 and 5.
13. A – downtempo, strumming with prominent “bass”, nice vocals.
14. D – sweet slide and great running “bass”, more choral than their other tracks, midtempo. Ends quite early.
15. G – starts quiet, fades out, comes back slow (see track 9). Solo vocalist “Oh-oh-oh”, then choral response.
16. A – midtempo, quiet but with a bit of percussion, high vocals. Good for sun setting over the ocean…