Various
Mien (yao)
'CANON SINGING IN CHINA, VIETNAM, LAOS' - Other-worldly Canon singing from Mien (Yao) hill tribes in China, Vietnam, and Laos. Raw, ethereal, and cosmic - for fans of Bulgarian choir music and Javanese court gamelan and Sundanese styles of vocal ascension. Although their name comes from a pejorative Chinese expression that means "dog" or "savage" - stemming from a legend that they were founded by a dog who saved the life of the daughter of a Chinese emperor and thus was rewarded with her hand in marriage - the largest branch of the Yao minority call themselves Mien, which means simply "people". They number 4 million and are spread over the southern Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan and also migrated to Vietnam, Laos and Thailand over the last centuries. Part of the Miao-Yao (Hmong Mien) group of the Sino-Tibetan ethnolinguistic family, they have many subgroups, usually defined according to colors of their traditional clothes. Recorded and produced in the field by Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong), this limited edition LP comes with a two sided insert of photos and liner notes with extended track descriptions by Laurent Jeanneau.