On her 2016’s breakout single, Muang Chut Dam, singer-songwriter Rasmee Wayrana sings vividly of her experience travelling to and performing for the first time in Paris.
“In a big city, my heart carries my dreams/ Working hard to spread my music far and wide,” she intones to bandmate Satukan Thyatira’s surging strummed guitar. “Here selling my voice/ Be it jariang [Khmer folk], Khmer or Thai/ These songs will remain with the world/ Because my heart belongs to the music.” If you’re already familiar with Thailand’s grassroots genres like luk thung and morlam, you’ll know that this make-itin-a-big-city narrative is not uncommon. The late, perhaps most beloved, luk thung queen Pumpuang Duangjan once sang about the strife of being a “rural singer” hoping to get the fabled big break in a city, and that she “will return to [her] house in a field only when [she’s] famous” on Nak Rong Ban Nok, now a classic that gets covered by generations of singers including Yui Yart Yer, Paowalee, and even Palmy.
For Rasmee, it was the trip to Europe that gave impetus to her stunning debut EP, the seven-track Isan Soul, which saw her pushing the genre into a new direction by giving it a jazz, gospel and afro-funk edge. It’s essentially morlam served with a global appeal, the magical musical hybrid we’re surprised didn’t happen sooner. And while its follow-up, Arom [Emotions] offers a further exploration of the sound she’s termed “Isan soul”, enhanced by a fuller, improvisation-prone production and a probe into female emotionality, her latest project Roots is simply a journey back to the very beginning.
Billed as a tribute to morlam, the six-track album fittingly opens with Morlam Jong Charoen (Morlam Forever), a phin- driven lead cut detailing her trip back to Isan and the overjoyed feeling of her being part of “morlam yook mai” [new era of morlam] (“We’ll go far/ Love live morlam”). Set to khaen (wooden mouth organ) melodies, Yon — Sakon Nakhon celebrates a budding love in a countryside and how music transcends origins and eras. We Love Morlam drives home the message further with the lyrics made up of central Thai, Isan dialect as well as folksy English.
On Fung Nong Nae (Please Listen), Rasmee minces no words in letting those regarding the sounds of phin and khaen as “lesser” have it (see proof in “quotable lyrics” below). This is followed by the defiant I Don’t Care and Diew Khaen Ka Soh (Khaen Solo), a closing instrumental piece highlighting exactly what the title suggests.
Quotable lyrics: “What’s wrong with us Thais, discriminating even music?/ Morlam’s such a hoot/Your hearing must be hindered/ Not knowing an ear-candy when you hear one” — Fung Nong Nae( Please Listen)
Listen to this: Morlam Jong Charoen ( Morlam Forever), We Love Morlam, Fung Nong Nae ( Please Listen), Diew Khaen Ka Soh ( Khaen Solo)
THE PLAYLIST
Hot Chip / Hungry Child
Throughout their two-decade career, UK group Hot Chip has existed in the sweet spot in which house, synth-pop, and disco harmoniously cohabit. And even though they have been on a four-year hiatus as a group following 2015’s Why Make Sense?, Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard and their clan now return to the scene with Hungry Child, a classic Hot Chip track that appeals to indie fans just as much as electronic heads. “Been trying hard to pull you back/ All my life, it’s momentary/ A moment like a heart attack/ Stopped my life, it’s momentary,” Taylor croons in the same vein as history’s tried-and-true house vocals. And if you must know, Hungry Child is the first taste of Hot Chip’s forthcoming, salaciously titled seventh studio album, A Bath Full Of Ecstasy, which features collaborations with Philippe Zdar, (Cassius, Phoenix) and Rodaidh McDonald (The XX, Sampha).
Selina & Sirinya / Thur Kue Pra Buddha Jao Khong Chan
In the about section on Selina & Sirinya’s Facebook page, the Thai indie-folk duo Natee “Aee” Sridokmai and Akasak “Ram” Chanang describe themselves as “you look sad but beautiful”. As vague as that may be, digging deeper into their music, we find that it does capture the melancholic vibes of the band better than putting it in one specific genre pigeonhole. Their latest Thur Kue Pra Buddha Jao Khong Chan [You are my Buddha], taken from new record Still Together, is an acoustic ballad centred around spiritual awakening and featuring their signature poetic songwriting (“You remain my light when the world darkens/ Leading me to rumination/ Seeing at things in a positive light”).
Khalid (feat. John Mayer) / Outta My Head
The rising R&B crooner connects with singer-songwriter/guitarist John Mayer to give their combined fanbase a smooth little jam called Outta My Head, the second single of the former’s sophomore effort, Free Spirit. “I’m here outside when you’re ready/ Bring out the shots and confetti,” begins Khalid in the opening verse with a perfect amount of soulful funk. “’Cause the days get brighter when you’re here/ So I gotta keep you near,” he adds, reciting what sounds like a diary entry of a lovestruck high schooler. Mayer, meanwhile, does what he always does best with his guitar, so no complaints there.
Tunng / Heatwave
After dropping their sixth LP, Songs You Make At Night, without much of a fanfare last year, UK neo-folk six-piece Tunng return with yet another album — this time a compilation of B-sides and rarities culled from their decade-long career. Lead cut, Heatwave, comes equipped with eerie, slightly distorted 80s synths which sound as if someone took the synth riff from Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), stretched them out, and played them back. On the singing front, Mike Lindsay and Becky Jacobs lead the charge in crafting their signature folky vocal harmonies. Titled This Is Tunng … Magpie Bites And Other Cuts, the compilation is slated for a release this June.
Kishi Bashi / F Delano
Kishi Bashi explores the internment of Japanese Americans on F Delano, the second taste of his forthcoming album, Omoiyari. Not unlike its predecessor Summer of ’42, the track finds the shape-shifting singer-songwriter, violinist delving into the past, alluding to the 32nd US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt who signed an executive order that led to the mass removal and incarceration of some 112,000 Japanese-Americans. “Named of the leader who favored a nation after his own/ Into the desert he pushed all the Nips, he wasn’t alone … Was he right? Innocence without a proper fight?” he muses along the breezy, shuffling instrumentation. A slice of cognitive dissonance for you to mull over this fine Sunday.
