Grace Nono, ISANG BUHAY, BMG Pilipinas, 1998
by Nirmal Ghosh
1997 Manila

Isang Buhay (One Life) is a dramatic new chapter in Grace Nono's extraordinary musical career.

This is her third album, and her most adventurous. Yet it is also possibly the most simple: Grace has struck a magic vein in her quest for building a modern sound on a firm, sensous traditional base. The music is richly layered, producing deep and broad, multidimensional sound with traditional bamboo and wooden percussion and stringed instruments used in complex arrangements and overlayed with driving beats and haunting melodies.

Grace explores the ancient territory of call-and-response vocals in this album as well. This form of vocalisation has been practised for thousands of years by musicians of deserts and mountains from Morocco to the Middle East, from the green wet landscapes of Eire to the high yellowgrass steppes of Central Asia. In this, massed voices respond to a single lead singer; the effect is a mesmeric swaying chant in a primal rhythm which is as old as the first time humans spread animal skin on a clay gourd and tightened it and dried it to make a drum, and sat by a wood fire beating it and singing into the night.

The effect of call-and-response combined with the rich instrumentation of this recording is almost magical. Grace uses her own distinctive voice to swoop and wail, expressing joy and grief, serenity and sadness in a style again typical of traditional musicians, be they wandering mistrels or shamanistic ritual singers. The depth and range of her voice, and her control over it, allows her to use it as she would an instrument; often her singing is primal and raw, a gooseflesh-popping wild woman sound that something deep inside us responds to. The desolation of the track Ay, Leng illustrates this perfectly.
Yet her vocalising never sacrifices musical disciplines and finesse: Grace is well known as a true and uncompromising artist. She is also a charismatic live performer, and in this album she comes closest to reproducing the power of her performances with a full back-up band. This album shows that grace's work, like a good wine, continues to mature, sometimes in unexpected directions. She has delved deep into the cellar of her soul - and her country's - to offer us this. It is something timeless, to keep and remember.

TAO MUSIC ORDERING INFORMATION

> back to main <