The Kohinoor Langa Group [World Network Vol. 34: Rajasthan]

Recorded at festivals in Cologne and Bonn during July 1994, the Music From The Desert Nomads album in the World Network Series has served the Kohinoor Langa Group well, sending them on a tour of Finland, Hannover Expo, Ireland, Spain and Hungary during 2000 and earning them airplay on world music programs aired by Berkeley's KPFA, WCBN-FM Ann Arbor and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National.

I was lucky enough to visit Rajasthan in 1998, and spent some time in the Thar desert, around Jaisalmer. Our group of camel wallahs was no different from every other group we met, in that it had a boss and a boy, aged 12 going on two score, plus it's very own balladeer, a singer of songs at the fire side, a cappella styleee. Such a pure voice, as clear as a star in the desert night. I tell you this as an example of how simple nomadic music can be.

The Kohinoor Langa Group is an altogether bigger outfit originating further eastwards, from the slightly less arid countryside about Jaipur. Their music is a marriage of songs from the simple nomadic peasantry and the formalised tradition of the Hindustani classical form. Thus, having it's source in Hinduism, it differs markedly from Islamic qawwali, and even the recent development of Hindu-based qawwali as found in the Marathi folk music of Mahrashtra. Instead, a rustic Bhangra-like Beat reaches yet further still to the predominantly Sikh Punjab (the land of 5 rivers). Not too surprising given that the land of the Punjus [Punjabis] fell within the Indus Valley civilization that channelled the arrival of the Aryans. Lord Rama is said to have been born at a place called Ghuram, now in Patiala district and Lord Sri Krishna delivered the immortal message of the Gita at Kurukshetra (also Dharmkshetra or Land of Dharma). Therefore, the Punjab has been home to the major philosophical thought underlying Hinduism, and also to the spiritual music, devotional songs and cutural expressions that go with it.

The foci of the Kohinoor Langa Group are however far more mundane, reflecting the migration to Rajasthan, to consider more the daily trials of survival, marital relationships and, innevitably, camels. Head-bobbing grooves are pounded out on khartal and dholak. The melodies are strained through the sinewy tones of sindhi sarangi and morchang. The duties for pivotal rhythmic vocals that tell the domestic tales in this music are shared between various members of the group, including the leading percussionist and, when needed to provide a female voice, his 12- and 9- year old brothers. Maybe these boys are also weathered on the outside, but something has preserved their hauntingly pristine soprano, delivered with the passion of an adult.

Ethnic musics are sometimes amazingly similar. Vocal inflections here sound more flamenco than Hindustani, like Camaron De La Isla, or, dare I say, Norman Wisdom shouting for Mr. Grimsdale? One wonderful track features just dholak drumming and morchang (morsing / jaw / Jews-harp), and could be straight from the Australian outback. Another would be at home in a Ganadougou mudhut in Mali (who are ironically African folk Muslim).