Great Unknowns from a Troubled Island

Following on from my Ibo Combo post, here's another great group, Les Difficiles de Petion-Ville, that's inexplicably obscure outside Haiti and its diaspora. This guitar band demonstrates a truly rare mastery of musical excitement - their records feature wave after wave of driving rhythms and tasty, stinging guitar riffs, further buoyed by catchy call-and-response vocal choruses (a typical Africanism). Great for dancing, this is music to animate the dead!


"Coq Qualite", their 5th album, is a superb example of their style of Konpa (a.k.a. Kompa, Compas). It's typically hard to come by - Sakapfet is probably the best online source, although you may need to telephone them to arrange international (i.e. non-US) shipping. I've been unable to find sound samples for this particular album, but here are samples from another (somewhat more laid-back on the whole, but track 07 gives a decent preview of what to expect on "Coq Qualite").

And here's a good reference for learning more about this style of music.

(Reunion) Island Charm, Nostalgia and Swing

Claude Vinh San (a.k.a. Bao Vang) is the son of the last Emperor of Annam (Vietnam), Duy Tân, who was exiled to Reunion. As is briefly noted in Vinh San's Wikipedia page, he is an accomplished musician, and a little Reunion label named Takamba have just beautifully reissued his early (1960's) musical output.


"Claude Vinh San et le Jazz Tropical" is a winner of a disc, recommendable to those with an interest in French music (lovely musette and chanson here...), African music (plenty of tasty rhythms), 1960's music, or indeed music with charm and swing to spare.

This is the latest in a series of discs from Takamba devoted to the patrimoine musical of the Indian Ocean. The dics's packaging is fantastic - a small book containing great archival photos (including a comprehensive set of album covers), plus liner notes in English and (in far more detail...) French. I've sometimes been annoyed by Takamba's audio restoration efforts - too much clean-up can rob old recordings of body - but such problems are hardly in evidence here.

Sound samples (and mp3 files for download) are available here. If, like me, you're still hooked on those little shiny discs, buy this from Discorama on Reunion.

Japanese New Wave Cinema: Masahiro Shinoda's "Pale Flower"

Masahiro Shinoda's "Pale Flower" is a terrific yakuza, or gangster, film made in the mid-60's. It was inspired, according to the director, by Japan's post-war malaise, in particular its side-lining by the major players of the Cold War. It's main characters are accordingly frustrated, bored, spiritually bereft, as they speed between high-stakes gambling venues in search of thrills.


Gambling is central to the story, and the film features many excellent scenes which present the activity in artful, almost fetishistic, detail. Indeed, the repetitive, rhythmic monotones of the dealer, the spellbound congregation in the hall, seem to bring the characters as close to church as they ever get. I should mention that Shinoda's presentation of gambling in "Pale Flower" led to the film being banned in Japan!

The superb modernist soundtrack was composed by Toru Takemitsu.

"Pale Flower" is sheer class all the way through, and a must-see for fans of classic cinema. American Cinemateque's DVD contains a very good transfer of the film.

I can also highly recommend Shinoda's "Silence" (a forerunner and companion piece to Joffé's "The Mission"), and "Assassination".