Indian / Asian

Not North or South America, Australia, Europe, or Antarctica.

  • Purnima Thakur - Miloongi Ghanta Ghar Ke Tale Purnima Thakur - Miloongi Ghanta Ghar Ke Tale

    Here’s a good synth-bass, tabla, rhythm box, banjo, sax, accordion and female vocals combination from India. Music is composed by Charanjit Ahuja and this stuff was released in 1980. It sounds like it could have been from anything between 1958 to 2020. Certainly not something you hear every day. There are four songs on […]

  • The Sound of Taiwan's Tribesmen The Sound of Taiwan’s Tribesmen

    Who are these tribesmen the cover speaks of? A record that raises many what, why and when questions.The confusing juxtaposing of Taiwanese villagers and the African savanah is smoothly continued on the record itself. Taiwanese melodies have been given the Daktari treatment with exotic electronic melodies backed by wah wah and cool percussion. “African” grunts […]

  • Fuat Saka - Ayrılık Türküsü Fuat Saka - Ayrılık Türküsü

    With it’s use of delayed percussion, eastern scales and jazzy ney (flute), this folk pop album manages to create a nice psychedelic mood, despite the release date (1984). The 10 songs featured on it are very contemplative, sung with a dark brooding voice, but still there’s a drive to the music, not in the […]

  • Yohanan Zarai - Is Tel Aviv Burning? Yohanan Zarai - Is Tel Aviv Burning?

    The Israeli film Shishim Sha’ot L’Suetz aka 60 Hours to Suez aka Is Tel Aviv Burning? apparently came out only 5 months after the 5 day war (1967) had ended, giving an account of those events. War movies don’t generally generate the best soundtracks, and this was still many years before Apocalypse Now. But this is […]

  • Baquen! - Sensational Sound of Screen Music Baquen! - Sensational Sound of Screen Music

    It took me a while before I noticed the pink female torso holding a gun underneith Sean Connery’s posterized face. The lack of priorities and absence of focus on this cover is somehow exemplary for the record itself. Some cool and some uncool tunes have been treated by the strange combo of drums, flute, oboe, […]

  • Baligh Hamdi featuring Magid Khan - Indo Arabic Variations Baligh Hamdi featuring Magid Khan - Indo Arabic Variations

    The idea for this record occured when Baligh Hamdi, famous Egyptian composer, heard the excellent sitar player Magid Khan when Khan visited Cairo. Hamdi had been expanding the horizons of Egyptian music by incorporating organs, electric guitar and saxes since the late fifties and this proved to be a new challenge. The resulting album, with […]

  • Happiendo - Kazemachiroman (~Happy End - Windy Street　Romance) Happiendo - Kazemachiroman (~Happy End - Windy Street　Romance)

    Many consider Happy End the first true rock band from Japan. This is due to the fact that they were the first to make rock albums sung entirely in their native Japanese. They are very well known in Japan, however Im not sure of their popularity in the Western World so I hope this mini-review […]

  • Tibet II Tibet II

    Tibet II - a musical anthology of the orient. Another in the great UNESCO collection, nice gatefold with loads of info, they never disappoint. Spoken word, chanting, instrumentials & all together, you are in the temple here is the “Invitation To The Deity Shugden”

  • The Bayan Mongol Variety Group - S/T The Bayan Mongol Variety Group - S/T

    From what i’ve read, the BAYAN MONGOL VARIETY GROUP were one of the very first bands in Mongolia doing modern westernized music, all this in the late 60s judging by what this lp sounds like. This record was released in 1981 — bet they did some top class music back then. Found this […]

  • The Panbers - Volume 1 The Panbers - Volume 1

    Here’s an Indonesian psychedelic record with lots of fuzz grooves, some sound effects, borderline psychotic vocals and a totally wacked out use of the English language. The band consists of drums, bass, guitar, organ and vocals and it is one of those records that make you realize how endless the sound possibilities are for a […]

  • Stereo Steal Guitar Mood Stereo Steal Guitar Mood

    File this one under ‘Japanese Easy Listening Steel Guitar Exotica’. All the text on this record is in Japanese except for ‘Made In Japan’ on the back cover and ‘Stereo Steal Guitar Mood’ (with the typo) on the record label. Maybe a Japanese reader can tell me the name of the artist or what […]

  • Reggae Beat Reggae Beat

    Okay, the music on this Indonesian reggae record might not be all that good, but hey, how often do you stumble into Indonesian reggae? The accompanying track, called Reggae Beat, is actually quite charming. Especially the flute parts are rather exotic, with a gamelan scale that blends in nicely. The organ sounds pretty spaced out […]

  • Masao Hiruma/Testpattern - Apogee and Perigee Masao Hiruma/Testpattern - Apogee and Perigee

    This excellent robot cover houses a record that is a fake soundtrack to a non-existant animation film about the space adventurs of the robots Apogee and Perigee and their android dog, creations of the mad professor Persec, and their fight against a totalitarian society. Almost all tunes are anoying to a point that they are […]

  • The Singers - S/T The Singers - S/T

    This little 10″ record by the all girl band The Singers is one of the most entertaining pieces of vinyl I own. Everything is right about it. One side has covers of tunes as Bang Bang. The other side has the Indonesian blend of pop and Krontjon music. The western side has a lot more […]

  • Sakura Teng: S/T Sakura Teng: S/T

    Sakura was a popular multilingual female singer in the Singaporean go-go/rock scene during the 60s and 70s. On this particular LP, she covers James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”, which is dominated by a loud fuzz guitar. The Thai surf group, The Quests, provided the rhythm on Mrs. Teng’s songs for many years […]

  • Chim Kothari: Sound Of Sitar Chim Kothari: Sound Of Sitar

    An early “Sitar-sploitation” record on Deram from 1966 which has much more of an MOR pop sound that stuff like Ananda Shankar which would come later. There are two originals on here that are in a Raga sort of mode, but it’s mostly comprised of pop covers of the day. The Sitar is superimposed over […]

  • San Ul Lim - 2 San Ul Lim - 2

    This is top notch psychedelia from a Korean trio who gets the job done: fuzzed out guitar, deep bass, tight drums, organ that never goes wrong, and singing that is absolutely off the chain. The whole thing has a sparse groove with the bass and drums chugging along underneath some pretty mental guitar, and the […]

  • A Grain of Sand A Grain of Sand

    Politically charged psych-folk for the asian american struggle. Grain of Sand interview