Tribal Music FTW

Tribal music covers a lot of territory. African tribal music, South American tribal music, Celtic tribal music, Australian, South Pacific, bedouin. Lots of varieties. What fascinates me about them all is they all seem to hang on a strong, regular rhythm. Modern variations on tribal themes and re-invisioning of tribal music is at once complex and visceral. This means that I find myself using tribal music as a backdrop for writing. A lot.

Music is a particular muse of mine (hey, it's right there in the word. Music. Muse. See?), and in this area, I think a lot of the music is under appreciated. So I'm sharing a few of my favorite tribal selections. Enjoy.

I'm starting with one of my favorites. It's off the album Apurimac II, a piece called Montezuma by Cusco.

This one is a modern revisit to Australian motifs, Dr Didg doing the piece Bob's Cloudfrom Serotonality [which, btw, I think is an awesome name for an album].

This one, which is unadulterated tribal drums from Burundi. I love me some African tribal drums - I have buckets of it.

This one is a remix of Native American tribal and is incredibly haunting and intense.

And finally - though this is, clearly, by no means exhaustive, another of my absolute favorites, Albannach. They do Celtic tribal that just gets right at the meat of a person. I think I might paint myself blue and brandish a Claymore if I heard this all the time. This one has distinctive Middle Eastern stylings - it's called Heart in the Holyland and is off the Bareknuckle Pipes and Drums Album. Which is just damned fine.

That only scratches the surface. Clearly I need to do another of these.