The music of the Batak people in the north of Sumatra is a dancing, festive music, with a complex rhythm pattern, played with great virtuosity on drums, gongs, oboes, and punctuated with glorious howlings. Located at the periphery of a remote and long tradition of double reeds aerophones, such as the dravidian shenaï, the maghrebian zorna or the shawms from Liaoning in China, the set of oboes (sarunei) deployed here is impressive and sustained by an infectious swing. Logically it is all about dance musics, sheer entertainments or ceremonial and expiatory musics (such as here with a Guru Sibaso, an exorcist woman).
Musiques des Batak
Karo, Toba, Simalungun
INEDIT- W 260061
• Gondang Si Boru Uluan.mp3
(Toba-Batak)