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Felix Blume - Death in Haiti: Funeral Brass Bands & Sounds from Port Au Prince (Discrepant, 2018)

Pretty intense album culled from many hours of field recordings made by Felix Blume in Port Au Prince in 2016. Scope out tracks like "Maestro Turenne's Brass Band "LOT BO RIVYE A"" with a bereaved woman wailing for her mother over a not-as-somber-as-you'd-expect brass band tune. Or, well, "Cries" which is both haunting and cathartic. "Prayers, Singings and Maestro Midouin's Saxophone Solo" and "Marijuana, Rhum and Music around the Graveyard" are beautiful meldings of those very things - not sure if it happened that way naturally or if it was edited after the fact but either way it's mixed beautifully. Very interesting, haunting, and at times strangely uplifting sounds.

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