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You can read an extensive review of the entire set, with audio clips and maps, in RootsWorld

'The Journey of Sounds' is a collection documenting Portuguese musical influences throughout the world, especially in places where the Discoverers forged lasting contacts.  Unreleased recordings from Goa, Damao, Diu (India), Sri Lanka, Malaca (Malaysia), Sumatra, Macau, East Timor, Mozambique, Sao Tome, Cape Verde and Brazil.

Each CD includes a colour booklet (in most cases over 100 pages) containing the complete historical description and lyrics of all the songs in three languages (original language, Portuguese and English). Research was carried out by prestigious investigators such as Professor Margareth Kartomi of the University of Monash in Australia, Professor Margaret Sarkissian of Smith College and Professor Keneth David Jackson of Yale University, both from the USA, Dr. Susana Sardo of the University of Aveiro, Dr. Joao Soeiro de Carvalho of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, both from Portugal.

This collection has been co-produced by the National Commission for Commemorating the Portuguese Discoveries, the Portuguese Pavilion at EXPO 98 World Exhibition, and Tradisom.

THE JOURNEY OF SOUNDS

From the fifteenth century, the Portuguese sailed out in search of new seas and new lands. By loonkin at the history of the portuguese navigators, we can also see the processes of exchange in which music played an extremely relevant role, even tough it may not always have been particularly obvious. This is the framework underlying this collection of music. It seeks to illustrate the sounds which have resulted from the transplantation of structures and expressions associated with music. In this, the role of the Portuguese during the Age of Discovery was decisive. However, besides searching for traces of Portuguese music in other musical traditions across the globe most important is to attempt to see how the contexts and people who adopted the music brought by or through the Portuguese produced new forms of musical expression which have since acquired their own autonomy and vitality, generating other universes of sound. This is were the journey becomes most enchanting and most meaningful.

VS 01 – GOA-GAVANA
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"...unveils the fascination with the journey and pays witness to the potential that music has for accompanying people and surviving after them. Goa provides us with a magnificent example of these ancient journeys and the adoption and adaptation of musical codes which have retained enough vitality to make them autonomous today and remain in a state of constant recriation."

VS 02 – SRI LANKA-CANTIGAS DO CEILÃO
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"...The cultural history of the Creole Portuguese of Ceylon rivals its linguistic evolution as a force for transforming the society in which it flourished, explained by the linguistic and racial fluidity of the community. The mixed descendents of the Portuguese began to be know by the term "Burghers" during the Dutch period, but even at that time they were considered to be racially and economically inferior and were popularly called "mechanics" or "micos". They spoke the Creole Portuguese that spread throughout the island, from the mestizo African and Euro-Asian communities that served the forts at the start of the 17th century."  

VS03 – SRI LANKA-BAILA CEILÃO CAFRINHA
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"....Culturally, while maintaining its group distinctiveness, the Burgher community has become largely assimilated to the matrix culture. The group is largely endogamous and functions as a caste-like unit; cross-cousin marriages are traditionally highly valued; group identity is furnished by dress, certain foods, customs associated with marriage, and, of course, language. To this list we could add the Portuguese Creole cantigas whose music, verses, and dance synthesize and reinforce group identity"  

VS04 – DAMÃO, DIU, COCHIM, KORLAY-DESTA BARRA FORA
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"...Based on studies by linguists, historians, and travelers in the last century, we recovered living examples of the tradition of Indo-Portuguese Creole verses and songs among the most isolated or abandoned coastal communities. The musical material on this CD stems from the literature and oral traditions of the age of the early voyages. "  

VS05 – MALACA-KANTIGA DI PADRE SA CHANG
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"...The musical world of the Portuguese Settlement can be divided into two broad categories: music performed by the cultural groups for primarily non-Settlement audiences (generically called "Portuguese dance") and music performed by Settlement residents for their own consumption ("domestic music").  It is somewhat ironic that the imported Portuguese repertoire, so instrumental in helping the residents of Malacca's Portuguese Settlement achieve a degree of self respect and national recognition, has done so at the expense of older, more truly hybrid Malaysian-Portuguese domestic traditions..."  

VS06 – SUMATRA-KRONCONG MORITKSO
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"... The voyages of the Portuguese brought different cultures into contact with each other in Indonesia - Portuguese, Malay, Javanese, West Asian, Indian, African, Dutch and other local styles. The Portuguese contribution - including asethetic moods and attitudes, instruments, rhythms and the locally adapted concept of implied or briefly suggested harmony - evolved in Indonesia into new forms of musical expression which have long since become independent fully-fledged forms and now partly define Indonesia´s own musical identity..."

  VS07 – MACAU-Fala vem Fala vai
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"...Listening to this CD you will certainly travel around sonorities somehow peculiar and particular that will not allow us to go back to Macau, to whatever it is that it still maintains from the sphere of lusophone influence, also because Macau today is already practically agglutinated by the magnificent power of the chinese culture that proliferates in it.  We can only look for some traces that still emphasise this centuries-old presence and make it become an evidence in this and other contexts, so that its History is not forgotten" 

VS08 – TIMOR-Tata Hateke Ba Dok
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"...However one of the clearest and most enduring manifestations of the Portuguese influence can be heard in the Timorese music.  Some of the recordings in this eclectic collection are archival, some have been re-recorded off favourite tapes which have worn quite thin, some are new compositions, and some are small aural clips of life as it is today in East Timor.  We hope you enjoy, and remember."

VS09 – MOZAMBIQUE-Makwayela
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"....Makwayela is an expressive mode who played an important role in the culture of Southern Mozambique. It includes singing, dancing, oral literature, and elaborate clothing. It is performed by groups of men both in the neighborhoods of Maputo as in the small villages of the South. makwayela texts perform an integrative function in society and are full of allegories and parable."

VS10 – S. TOMÉ E PRÍNCIPE-Tchiloli
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"...Traditionally, Tchiloli is presented in the secular part of the many religious festivities celebrated in São Tomé throughout the year; as it is the case in Portugal, the music performed in this context as little to do with the religious event. However, in today's São Tomé, Tchiloli has gained new performing spaces, like official celebrations, radio and television broadcasts, and presentations abroad..."

VS11 – CAPE VERT-Dez granzi di tera
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"...Most music played and listened by capeverdians, integrates the traditional genres that have been developed in the archipelago throughout history and that are strong components in a definition of the capeverdians culture. Those are particular musical genres in wich genesis naturally were european and african elements. The best known traditional musical genres, nowadays actively cultivated, embrace: morna, coladeira, batuque and funáná..."

VS12-BRASIL-Cavalo Marinho da Paraíba
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"...The Portuguese colonization put into motion the progressive Westernization of behaviors, of the economy and of the use of space, submitting politically and culturally the populations of indigenous or African extraction. Following the disintegration of subaltern identities, values such as the Portuguese language, catholicism and the market economy became predominant, although significant residuals of indigenous and African cultures remain today in regional speech, behavior and religious practices.

A 12 CD collection

Available ONLY in full sets

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