It came to me once when sharing some music I liked with other people that not everyone likes music sung in a foreign language. In fact it makes some down right uncomfortable to not know what the singer is saying. I guess after 20 plus years playing bilingual music at church I am long past that barrier and often listen to what for lack of a better term might be called world music. It is music from around the world. If I go to a festival I can usually be found at a stage featuring music from the Balkans, Cuba, Haiti or in this case It was La Perla from Bogota, Columbia.
La Perla is a trio of women, often called the drum witches who bring an urban punk attitude and a rock hip hop influence to traditional music forms using drums, vocals and the Columbian gaitas or flute. One of the elements I especially enjoyed was the use of some type of vocoder or sub octave pitch shift on the vocals. It's a unique effect that could be over done but it was put to use sparingly and I can always use more of something that sounds weird.
This drum looks like a djembe
Between Honktx and now the International Festival I have probably lost track of the number of groups I've seen with some kind of bass drum/percussion/cymbal set up. I like it and I want one.
Here's the gaitas in action. They applied just the right touch of reverb though the sound system to make it huge.
The players freely switched between instruments and vocals.
We saw this group on Thursday night of the festival. They were also scheduled to play Friday. I had my day blocked in with my focus on seeing Slavic Soul Party and as I set my lawn chair up near that stage a couple a few years older that us walked up. They had been to a nice restaurant and their snappy causal dress suited that scene but looked festival enough for the night time events. They said, "we've never been, what's the deal? We are here to see La Perla." I directed them to the correct stage and the grandkids fetched them a festival map from the info booth. I told them they have a great show but I should have asked how the band crossed their radar. Maybe more people like world music than I think. Maybe it's just the locals around here.
One thing to remember is that Festival International is free. I'm retired. Follow here for more info on free and low cost entertainment.
Check out La Perla.
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