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various Afghani artists
Afghanistan Untouched (2 CD set)

Recorded in the field in Afghanistan in 1968 by musicologist Mark Slobin, this 2 CD set explores all the diversity and commonality of the many people of the nation. Both ametuer and professional singers and musiicans were recorded, from every then recognized ethic group in Afghanistan. The CDs are layed out by group.

CD One: Tajik and Uzbek
CD Two: Hazara, Pashtun, Herati, Turkmen, Kazahk

Listen:
Katagani tune
Song with qairaq
Flute tune
Felek on dambura

$1.00 FROM EVERY CD SOLD WILL GO DIRECTLY TO THE IRC AND THE SCHOOL FOR HOPE. THREE NEW SCHOOLS FOR WOMEN HAVE ALREADY BEEN BUILT

"Slobin's annotations are informative and, just as importantly, readable. Each track is described concisely but thoroughly, placing the music in its context and describing the instruments. He writes about the challenges of recording wary villagers, and describes numerous occasions where music is played... Excellent, expressive photographs accompany the text... Afghanistan Untouched is a valuable record of a place and a time that are lost to the ravages of history." - RootsWorld "This double CD set of recordings made in 1968 by Mark Slobin is just scrumptious. It captures a traditional culture unknowingly on the brink of change, before the changes wrought by Soviet, Taliban or US oil-military machine, before the changes rent in the fabric of Afghani society. Its only counterpart to my knowledge is the excellent single volume album released by Le Chant du Monde. Only this exceeds it, both in length, scale and by any other criterion one might care to suggest. There will be a great deal of pontificating about this masterpiece. The state of political play in Afghanistan will guarantee that. But listen to the teashop rendition called Songs With Qairaq for a flavour of what has gone, maybe forever, maybe not. It is nonsense doggerel and laughter with qairaq accompaniment. Never heard of qairaq? Me neither. Qairaq, the notes explain, are "a kind of castanet made of polished stones from the nearby river". If anybody had the wit to honour recordists with something like a Grammy for services to capturing traditional folkways, Mark Slobin, Afghanistan Untouched and Traditional Crossroads would be its sure-fire winner for 2003." - Ken Hunt, fRoots

Press from the label:
Before its lands were crushed, its people scattered, and its music silenced by chaos and decree, Afghanistan overflowed with musical treasures, its lyrical instruments and haunting melodies as astonishing in their variety and uniqueness as the ethnically dense country itself. These extraordinary untouched field recordings--raw and immediate, made on the spot in bazaars and teahouses and an empty hotel--capture the voices and rhythms of Afghanistan in its last years of relative peace. Included here are a rich array of ethnic music styles in numerous languages; local regional masters and a star of national Afghan Radio; village amateurs and prized travelling professionals (including women wedding singers!). Recorded in 1968 by renowned ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin, this invaluable 2-CD vintage collection includes 40 pages of notes on Afghan music and numerous photos. In an effort to make these historic recordings speak to the needs of post-Taliban Afghanistan, where music can be played once again, but the political and economic conditions which promote culture are so threatened, Traditional Crossroads sought out two of the agencies still willing to work in the vacuum of policy and international aid that is present Afghanistan. The School for Hope is committed to building schools for women--three have already been built--and the IRC (International Relief Committee) was awarded one of the only major US government contracts to oversee relief in the country. Traditional Crossroads has agreed to donate 1 dollar from each CD to these Afghan relief efforts. Even before Afghanistan descended into war in the 1970s, music was considered dangerous and often taboo. Mark Slobin nevertheless spent many months finding musicians and off-track venues in which to record them. For the first CD here he focused extensively on ethnic groups in northern Afghanistan (Tajiks and Uzbeks), whose cultures have as many ties to tribes of the Central Asian steppe across the old Soviet borders as to the Pashtun and other groups dominant in Kabul and southern Afghanistan. He made these recordings just before modern roads had penetrated the north, mingling musical traditions. For the second disc, he gathered music from southern ethnic groups (including urban music from Kabul and Herat), whose music has a Pakistani and Indian flair, as well as Kazakh and Turkmen groups dispersed across the country. Capturing the differences and connections between these groups, the sense of the sheer vastness of Afghan culture, the diversity and fragility of language itself (CD 1, track 8 features a song in Wakhi, one of the rarest languages on earth), these landmark recordings reveal to western audiences an Afghanistan teeming with life behind the images of remote empty landscapes and urban tumult one often sees on the news: a land as rich in culture as it is poor in resources.