Various

Field recordings of extraordinary rarity, captured by Laurent Jeanneau (with Shi Tanding) among minority communities in southern China. "Miao" is an old and misleading catch-all term, covering dozens of subgroups and millions of people, many of whom call themselves Hmoob; the recordings here document their mouth organs in every size (the lushen, the gue, the mantong, the gourd-bodied hulushen) along with rarities such as the Gelao gupiaoqin string instrument and two-part canon singing by village elders.

Jeanneau, based in Yunnan between 2006 and 2013, is candid about the tension running through the project: in a China that increasingly markets ethnicity itself to tourists, he seeks out music that is lived rather than staged for the camera, while noting honestly where a performance was put on for visitors. The result is a precious, unsentimental snapshot of musical traditions under pressure. LP.