Saturday, September 29, 2012

namphueng mueangsurin: rueam anre



artist: น้ำผึ้ง เมืองสุรินทร์ (namphueng mueangsurin)
album: เรือมอันเร (rueam anre)
01. อันเร (anre)
02. กัจปะกา (katchpaka)
03. จะอังกรอง (cha ang krong)
04. ตำเร็ยยูลได (tamre yuldai)
05. ซันตูจ (santuch)
06. เบริญ (broen)

alexandra was out in surin recently and, of course, brought back a bag full of great old khmer tapes from the city!  while my natural inclination would have been to save this one, really why not just start with the best of the lot?  namphueng mueangsurin is at the head of surin's kantruem traditionalist revival movement, electing to minimize the thai & international influences in her music as compared to the genre's more popular, modern practitioners.  while this is certainly a bold move, namphueng has won a devoted audience for it, and her recordings will almost invariably be found  wherever kantruem music is sold.  the music on this cassette is simply beautiful, a carefully-paced interplay between drum & fiddle supporting namphueng's soulful voice.  it's a real treasure... enjoy!

preview:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what this is going to sound like but it's going straight on to my iTouch because it looka so enticing... thanks very much!

Dennis said...

Thanks Peter. My wife says thanks here: -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_O5SwQw8fU

sevol said...

hi peter,

cool site -- thanks for sharing your finds from the thai music scene.

i've listened to several of your selections, & in particular, really like this one. her voice is a joy & the song variety is super nice. the final track is a perfect switch up, with the added instrumentation, from the more traditional sounding pieces coming before it.

if i ever get around to digitizing it, i'll email you as to uploading a cassette of buddhist chants i bought near chiang mai 25 or so years ago. (for a time, i was a novice monk there.)

i learned enough of the language to get by from a group of thai students i stayed with for a while in bangkok, but after all this time, my ability to speak & understand even a bit of thai has quite disappeared. i'm guessing she's singing in a khmer dialect, & anyway, i don't mind not actually knowing what she's singing.

will be checking more, thanks again,

-s

peter said...

hi sevol, so glad you like it, this is really one of my favorites as well! and yes, i believe namphueng is singing northern khmer, or "khmer surin". i'd love to hear your tape, maybe even help translate if i can. if you wanted to share some personal background about the music or your time in thailand i would be glad to have you write a guest post here! let me know if you have the time or the motivation, my email should be easy to find through the blogger profile.