I’m going to Guyana tomorrow. Boa Vista, Roraima, Brasil and then on to Georgetown to be exact. I’ve got another job as sound recordist for a documentary. I’ve had about 2 weeks to get things together for this trip, so my musically oriented research has been pretty sparse. Here’s about what I know….

I heard about Chutney from DJ Feelfree of Visionary Underground a year or two ago, but he didn’t have anything to show me. Eventually, I found some stuff on soul seek, but wasn’t able to learn too much about the artists and the style or even the exact geographic distribution of it. As it turns out, Guyana and Trinidad are the main centers of Chutney. Check this article out - very detailed history of Chutney in the Caribbean. From the article….

“Chutney music came with the arrival of East Indian indentured laborers to the Caribbean. They were brought by the British as a replacement for the enslaved laborers on the sugar plantations, who were freed after emancipation. The majority of the indentured laborers came from……..Many of these East Indians settled in the then British colonies of British Guiana, now Guyana, Trinidad and Jamaica……”

Wikipedia has something to say about Chutney. the tracks I’ve found of Chutney vary from Hi-NRG Bollywood dance to Reggaeton and more straight acoustic Chutney (not much of this). So, I’m on the look out….

uh, did I not say, Hi-NRG dance music?

You can check out some samples and a very cool collection of album covers here.

Here’s a whole list of Desi Chutney Internet Radio Stations.

And now some video….

GuyanaNJ FM Desi Radio presents Wedding Dance in Essequibo Coast, Guyana.

sevi & crew, blaña hasd hasd

Estrella Morente has been having a bad day. One of the worst in months. Her country house is filled with scorpions. They have come crawling out of a nearby ravine whose creek now smells metallic. This land isn’t fertile. That’s what yerma means.

*

her new album is called Mujeres, and her new audience is called people who saw Almodóvar’s Volver, for in that film she sings the title song while on-screen Penelope Cruz lip-syncs it. Everyone wins!

This song, Zambra, harkens back to the flamenco sound of a hundred years past (note geriatric Grupo de Laúdes del Albaicín in the video)

Quitate de la ventana porque voy a suspirar,
mis suspiros son de fuego y te pueden abrasar,
¿que quieres de mi, que quieres de mi,
si hasta el agua que yo bebo te la tengo que pedir?

Get away from the window, because I’m going to sigh.
My sighs are fire and I could roast you.
What do you want from me, what do you want –
must I even ask you for the water I drink

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