Congo | Cérémonie du Bobé (Ocora 560010)

This recording, made in 1990, captures the sound of the Bobé ceremony conducted by several pygmy groups in northern Congo. Since I don't have the booklet, I have to rely on what little information the Internet provides: apparently the Bobé refers to a spirit (or spirits?) of the forest, and the ceremony may or may not have something to do with securing good luck for hunters. Interestingly most of the other records of pygmy polyphony in my collection feature just one ethnic group, whereas here the choir includes members of three: Bagombé, Babemgélé, and Mikaya.

I never found time to read Arom's classic text on African polyphony, which is something I'm very unhappy about. Possibly I would've gotten more out of this record; but as things stand I can only write an account much like those given by early European explorers. What we have here is essentially a long - almost 60 minutes - polyphonic piece for soloists, choir, percussion, and perhaps the occasional actor. Perhaps the most startling aspect of the music is how it seems to start and stop unpredictably. Sometimes a single drum solo launches a tutti section, sometimes a single voice. Other times such solos do not lead anywhere. Tutti sections can be long or short, but invariably unpredictable as to when they're going to suddenly start falling apart. The rhythm is roughly the same throughout the entire piece, but the way it is articulated varies a great deal, and there are some tempo fluctuations as well. The percussion is endlessly varied, with several kinds of drums, different hand clapping techniques, sometimes mixed, sometimes doubled. At one point during track 3 I thought water drums were employed, or perhaps some kind of rustling sound produced using a great amount of dry leaves.

The vocal parts are extremely varied. I've heard pygmy polyphony before, but never on such scale, and never with such an impressive array of techniques: there's singing and yodeling, which I expected, but there is also whistling (including a few parts where there's just whistling) and several types of what seem to me imitations of animal and bird cries. Early in track 4 there appears to be a major change in vocals, with older female voices (I think) producing a beautiful choral section, while the percussion becomes particularly prominent and high-pitched; very intense.

This wealth of detail doesn't really open up at first, though. I had some trouble following the piece for roughly the first 20 minutes or so; things became much easier after that, and at the end I couldn't get enough of the music. Most changes are subtle, delicately woven into the texture, and require a bit of attention from the listener. One final remark to remember this record better, the first and last tracks are ambience - rain, crickets, people talking - I thought I could hear the editing in track 1; in the last track there seems to be something else going on - a hunt, perhaps? I wish I had the booklet or at least knew what is going on.