Music From Another World: Exotic Thrills in the Corner of the Record Store

Imagine a crowded record shop. Difficult, maybe, in the age of iTunes, but perhaps you have gone to the big city, where enough customers can be snared by nostalgia and the urge to collect and curate. Wallet in hand and with quivering ears, you slowly wander the aisles. Depending on the sadism of the shop owner, you might have to flick through boxes, get on your knees to dig for treasure, or walk with your body bent at 90 degrees for best browsing potential. Let's say you bypass Rock & Pop, spend some time in Folk, pick a Jazz/Classical wild card, and maybe even nip into Funk & Soul, Urban or Metal. You get a bit absorbed in the blurb on the wad of sound already gathered, and when you look up you find yourself in a part of the store you have never seen before. Peering at the racks, you see no names you recognise. Some are even in foreign languages. It dawns on you a second before you see the sign: you have found the World section.

Wikipedia tells us that the term World Music was invented in the 60's by Robert E. Brown who was putting on some gigs of African and Asian music at university in Connecticut, the arts and crafts hub of America. The name has since been used by the English-speaking world as a rug to brush any sound from the rest of the world under to avoid having to bother engaging with its context. This is pretty typical of our approach to other cultures, and seems like it might reduce our appreciation of these alien noises. Luckily, music has its own language, something that goes on in, around and between our vibrating ears and our brain which doesn't really have to be understood to be enjoyed. Camus was on to something when he wrote that “the only kind [of music] that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.” He's gone a bit too far, as philosophers like to, but part of what he's saying is that music doesn't have to make any sense to be wonderful, which is perfectly true.

The contextual disconnect which allows us to shove everything under the World umbrella and largely ignore it is also what makes it so exciting to those who give it a try. Whether we listen to cutting edge Indo-dance fusion or traditional British folk (which is just as culturally removed from us as any other World music) we hear music coming from somewhere we really struggle, or don't bother, to relate to – even more if the lyrics are beyond our understanding. At its best, our dumb response can be a great joy of discovery without the snobbery that comes from knowing a style of music well. The thrill of the exotic in the instruments, arrangements, moods and vocal styles which have been practised and developed in separate traditions to those we know and love doesn't go away, I guess until we become as familiar with them as we are with meat-and-potato rock music. By which time it has been replaced with the less exciting but still fulfilling type of music appreciation we are used to – culturally located and understood.

Of course, its not often that we hear something that different to anything we've ever heard before. What with cultural cross pollination and similarities in recording techniques (eg. World Music from the 80s) you often get an even stranger listening experience where you can hear something you recognise alongside and amongst the exotic stuff. These links might help you get into the more exotic elements of the music, or might deter you if they remind you of a type of music you've already made a judgement about and think you understand. Whatever, they also point to the fact that genres don't really exist and all music is interconnected in a big tangled blob which we try and serve neatly but ends up spilled all over the table. The next number 1 chart smash is linked to the first caveman banging a drum and howling. It's all a matter of how you approach it, and I hereby urge you in a biblical fashion, reader, to go forth with open ears and unprejudiced minds and listen to all the world's music, whatever it be labelled. Wallow in the sensation of not knowing what the hell you're hearing. Smash down the partitions in the record store. The caveman is listening, laughing, and soiling his loincloth with glee.