Khun Narin's Electric Phin Band (Innovative Leisure, 2014), was recorded
in 2014 for the first time by a California producer traveling to a
remote village (Lom Sak) of nothern Thailand.
They played a kind of party music called "phin prayuk" ("phin" being a
home-made amplified three-stringed lute), and the line-up changed from time to
time, including a broad range of age groups, from children to elderly men.
There is an exuberant Lai Sing, more easily recognizable as folk dance music, basically the Thai equivalent of a bluegrass progression, and there is a more more melodic (instrumental) chant Sut Sanaen #2; but,
surprisingly, the music of the eleven-minute Lam Phu Thai is reminiscent
of the psychedelic jams from the 1960s,
with the phin playing the role of the electric guitar, sounding like
a combination of the
Incredible String Band and
Iron Butterfly 's In A Gadda Da Vida,
with a the crescendo of the phin that border on the frenzy of an Indian
raga.
That style is even more articulate and vertigo-like in the
19-minute Show Wong Khun Narin, this time fueled by a
pounding tribal rhythm. The guitar (oops, i meant the "phin") weaves
melodic variation after melodic variation of what could be the
"spaghetti western" soundtrack.
It is a relentless cascade of brilliantly colored chords and riffs over
a rolling carpet of percussion that shapes the most transcendent of
village parties.
II (Innovative Leisure, 2016) was vastly less inventive.
The first pieces seem influenced by
Ennio Morricone's spaghetti-western soundtracks: the
instrumental exotic guitar overture Phua Kao, that sounds like an unreleased track by Santana and Santo & Johnny;
and the synthetic lounge jazz Phom Rak Mueang Thai.
Then there's something like mournful Japanese music (Baisi Sukhwan)
followed by a couple of sprightly folk dances (Sao Kalasin Lam Phloen
and especially the soulful Scottish-sounding Chakkim Kap Tokto).
The eight-minute Thang Yai Thang Yao starts slow but picks up speed
and whirls around like a demonic gypsy dance, and towards the ends switches
to what sounds like a bluegrass hoedown.
Some of the results, notably Long Wat, are engaging, catchy and stomping,
but there's nothing here to shock like on the first album.
This is simply a revival of melodic instrumental music of the 1960s, particularly the Farfisa beach bands of California.
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