Kink Gong – “Voices” – [Discrepant]

abacus   2/24/2014   12-inch, A Library

Laurent Jeanneau has been recording music of endangered cultures in Southeast Asia since the end of the 90s, a key contributor to Sublime Frequencies. As Kink Gong he electronically treats and layers his recordings to create hallucinatory manifestations to this aural reality. Sometimes the treatments to these witches brew concoctions are subtle, like on Baozoo Khen, just enough to induce a slightly altered state. Other times, like 3 Hani Pipa the collages are stacked together so crowded the somatic effects are disorienting. The pieces pretty much always maintain a grasp of the original sounds, though not even sure on Haoshendd, with the various voices and acoustic sounds of percussion ensemble, different types of lutes and a leaf keeping their true timbre. The recordings here are collected from Yunnan and Guizhou regions of China, as well as Sapa, North Vietnam and Phongsaly, Laos. Ritualistic meditations and somnambulist dissociations, a DMT parallel memory dream.