ne of the great coups of the Nonesuch Explorer Series was the unprecedented exposure and attention it provided for vibrant, exciting musical forms that had nevertheless not been given much serious attention previously. Many releases in the series were the first, or nearly the first, word on a particular little known culture or musical tradition from some ignored corner of the world, and the effect of hearing this music for the first time could be startling. This was certainly the case with this album of traditional religious and ritual music from East Africa. The region has never had much recognition for its unique musical heritage, with most interest from the West being directed towards the other coast, but this recording (made mostly in Kenya in the early ‘70s) reveals East Africa as a region just as rich and diverse in its musical styles as the rest of the continent.


The majority of this music is steeped in the religious rites and customs of the people recorded here. There is a heavy emphasis on drums, which in the local culture are attributed with a healing power. The opening track, “Ngoma ra mrongo,” is a recording of a rite in which sick women are “possessed by the spirit of the drums” and made better; as the repetitive rhythms almost imperceptibly increase in intensity, chanting and yelling summons the tide of wellness. The album closes, as it opens, with the sound of drums and chanting, though this time it is to accompany a funeral dance. Plaintive horns and flutes mingle with a slow hand drum pulse and the jingling of bells tied to the dancers’ legs, with lyrics presumably eulogizing the deceased. In between these fitting bookends sits a wealth of varied music celebrating a diverse and deeply spiritual culture.


On “Tuken Moral Songs,” two traditional singers named William and Musa provide a fascinating glimpse into the surprisingly accessible sound of the rapidly disappearing indigenous African song form. Accompanied by just a kibugantit -- a six-string harp that sounds very much like an acoustic guitar -- the two singers comment on changes in society with an upbeat lilt, their buoyant melodies infectious and fun. When one singer laughs sincerely before delivering his lyric in the second of two songs included on this medley, it’s a truly great pop song moment, proving that language is virtually inconsequential when you’ve got a good song delivered with real feeling.


Several other tracks follow this rather surprising thread of traditional song, including “Coconut Pickers Song,” where the singer is accompanied by the repetitive back-and-forth twang of a one-stringed harp called an uta. What all of these songs have in common is the way that rhythm interacts interestingly with melody to produce a hypnotic effect. “Nyatiti,” featuring an eight-string harp that shares its name with the title, further explores this style, as the singer’s fast-paced storytelling singing mingles with the chiming patterns emanating from the harp.


Other songs have a more practical role in the lives of the Kenyan people recorded on this album. The “Kayamba Dance” is part of a wedding celebration, and it prominently features a bung’o horn, a high horn which produces a remarkable, utterly unique, buzzing, melodic sound. The horn’s improvised solos are joined by upbeat chanting and dancing to provide a steady rhythm. The theme of healing and medicine returns on “Pokot Witch Doctor,” which captures a ceremony in which a doctor rubs his hands along a stick accompanied by blats and squeaks from a horn; the ritual is meant to remove evil spirits from a sick person and collect them in the doctor’s pot. Another track records the amazing “Giriama Spirit Dance,” a healing ritual in which a chorus of women and children sing in unrestrained harmony over a steady drum pulse. Over all this, a female witch doctor yells at, apparently, a sick pregnant woman, hectoring the evil spirits in her body to depart. It is indeed a cleansing sound.


As is this entire record. There’s such variety here, such a rare assortment of unique musical snippets and seldom-heard rituals, that this record is an absolutely essential document of East African society. Importantly -- as with the entire Explorer Series -- this is also a stunningly original and alive music, filled with the passion of a people for whom music is not just diversion or entertainment, but a way of life.