{"product_id":"aka-free-voices-of-forest_aka-free-voices-of-forest_2024","title":"Äkä Free Voices Of Forest","description":"Here is the live album 'AKA - Free voices of forest', the result of an intercultural adventure. The protagonists are, on one hand, the Aka pygmies of the NDIMA Ensemble - inhabitants of the equatorial forest of Congo-Brazzaville - Sorel Eta, a Bantu ethnologist, manager, and founder of Ndima, and on the other hand, three Occitan Frenchmen named Le'ila Martial, Eric Perez, and Rémi Leclerc. - - It is an unprecedented meeting between the Ndima group, masters of the ancestral vocal repertoire of the Aka pygmies, and European artists with a rich imagination, skilled in improvisation. This multidimensional epic spans several years. It is the subject of a performance created in France and Congo for indigenous populations, as well as a feature documentary film directed by Yvan Schreck. - - This album, recorded live, brings together recordings made during the spring 2022 tour in France. Here, the voice is at the center of exploration and becomes the instrument of all possibilities. It is a wordless journey into the heart of human nature. In the meeting of these two worlds, there is the advent of a new community of sounds. - - - - - AKA PYGMIES: The pygmies inhabit the forests of Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes and are divided into different groups such as the Baka, Bambuti, Batwa, Babongo, Efé, and others. Traditionally nomadic, they are now in the process of settling down. - - The Aka pygmies, for their part, live in the forests of northern Republic of Congo and southern Central African Republic. They speak Aka. These peoples are trying to preserve their way of life and culture despite the growing influence of modernism in rural areas and the depletion of resources in a forest gradually devastated by both farmers and logging companies. - - Marginalized and often exploited like most pygmy groups, the Aka maintain client relationships with their Bantu neighbors, performing various tasks for them such as hunting, fishing, honey gathering, carrying, and agricultural work... - - Children of the forest, the Aka know how to take care of it, as their lives depend on it. The forest provides them with game and plants for food, healing, and making all the necessary objects for hunting, cooking, and honey gathering... - - Music is part of daily life. As Simha Arom writes, \"Hearing an Aka choir sing, that is, the entire camp, leaves the impression of an extraordinary intertwining of voices and vocal timbres where the jodel technique predominates (Encyclopedia of Aka Pygmies).\" - - The Aka have indeed practiced, since childhood, a contrapuntal polyphony that the jodel makes particularly spectacular with its sudden changes in register. - - Likewise, their drummed rhythms, dances, and instrumental music for bowed harp, harp-zither, musical bow, and flute testify to a rich artistic culture that is now threatened with extinction. Originating from the village of Kombola located in northern Congo-Brazzaville, the Aka musicians and dancers of the Ndima ensemble are therefore committed to promoting and preserving this musical heritage, inviting us on a journey into the depths of the equatorial forest. Music and dances of daily life, songs of the spirits of the forest, hunting rites, healing, or mourning rituals, thus offer us a glimpse of an ancient tradition that is also in perpetual recreation. - - Sorel ETA","brand":"Äkä Free Voices Of Forest","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58517289599320,"sku":null,"price":23688124.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0898\/4943\/0360\/files\/0745604547901.jpg?v=1789857727","url":"https:\/\/vinyles.com\/en-us\/products\/aka-free-voices-of-forest_aka-free-voices-of-forest_2024","provider":"Vinyles.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}