Topical? You be the judge

Sometimes I feel like I'm reaching to make a topical post, since most of my reactions to stuff we're reading or concentrating on in classwork is just "hmmmmm...interesting". That said, I heard this on NPR tonight and it clearly speaks to the importance of the Web in the making of something that I care about. That's music, if you haven't been keeping score at home.

http://www.theworld.org/global-hit/hal-and-the-big-5

This is a really cool story about a band called Hal and the Big 5, comprised of individuals worldwide who have never been in the same room together, but have an album produced by world music dude Bill Laswell (who has made records with Iggy Pop, Eno and David Byrne, and Herbie Hancock) which has just been released. The producers and musicians are in England and Belgium, and the singers on the record are all from South Africa, with guest musicians from Tunisia, France and Morocco. The tool that made their colloboration possible, as the keyboardist and arranger Duncan says in the interview, is the Internet. By mailing individual tracks around, they came up with something that none of the initial trackers could ever have predicted.

This is being done quite a bit now, but it is interesting how unlimited collaborations like this are becoming. Developing cultural understanding, testing the limits of art, etc.

Anyway, its neat. The music is OK from what I heard in the piece, but the concept is more interesting. For the best in cross-cultural summer jams, I would recommend another recent album: Extra Golden's "Hera Ma Nono". Two guys from DC who grew up playing indie rock + a drummer, guitarist and a singer from Kenya all hole up in a house in the Poconos to record a shimmering, joyful cross between Kenyan benga and American rock. Clip: