49th State Records

[Pangloss62]

As a collector of vinyl LPs, I have to say that this past weekend marked one of my best scores in a long time. I went into one of the thrift stores on my used record circuit and ran into a vein of really cool vinyl. The highlight was several UNOPENED records on the 49th State Label.

http://www.hipwax.com/music/hawai_49.html

Basically, these records are of Polynesian music, songs, and drumming, produced, recorded, and performed by actual Polynesians. This last fact is important because so much of what was produced and marketed as "authentic" Polynesian music, later to be called "exotica," is not really authentic at all. Think of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. I like the latter artists too, but this stuff on 49th State is amazing.



This particular album arranges the tracks

Song
Drums
Song
Drums
Song
Drums
Song
Drums

And by "Drums" they really mean DRUMS! Wild, amazing, spine-tingling native Tahitian drums pounding away for about 2 minutes on each track. In my imagination I could see the men paddling madly on their outrigger canoes.

I later found out that some of the 49th State stuff has been re-released on CD, so that took away some of the magic, but having the vinyl is still pretty cool.