Essentially a sampler of the various Asian albums on the ARC Music label,
Sounds of the Far East makes a stab at covering the whole of Eastern Asian music. Within the space of 12 songs, Mongolia, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines are all given time. The album starts out in Mongolia with an improvisation on the morin khuur, the earthy sounding oversized fiddle so common in the region's music. From there, it moves into Chinese classical forms, with a nice flute work, an extremely well-known ensemble piece performed ably on konghou and pipa, and a work for the erhu, with the full range of emotion and expression calmly explored as the song goes on. A bit of Taiwanese dance music follows, followed itself by a pair of works from Korea: a basic dance involving the changgo drum and an improvisation on the komungo (a large plucked zither somewhat similar to the ajeng). As the focus moves to Japan, ARC regular
Richard Stagg provides a calm work on the shakuhachi, Ayako Lister gives a small tour de force on the koto, and
the Yamato Ensemble (featuring
Stagg again) plays a pastoral work on the koto, shakuhachi, and a larger and deeper relative of the koto. Finishing the Japanese circuit is a piece from the wadaiko taiko ensemble, making use of a good deal of counter-work between the players, an unorthodox form taken to force a higher degree of power in the total sound of the drums. The album finishes on a small piece of kulingtang music from the Filipino Muslim traditions, similar to gamelan but rather faster in performance. The music is all quite good, performed in large part by relative unknowns on the world music market, but quite capable players nonetheless. Deeper listens in the traditions of the various pieces is always recommended to curious listeners, but this album provides a good jumping-off point for further exploration. ~ Adam Greenberg