Feeling sick of listening to the same half-whispered, slurred English singers who pronounce every ‘s’ as ‘sh’? Are you looking to expand your musical horizons to the extent that you can find yourself in another universe? Take a look at these different music genres, drop the idea that ‘current’ and ‘new’ means ‘good’, and you very well might just find your latest old jam.
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With this century-old musical tradition, the beauty is in the ear of the listener. The ancient history of polyphonic folk singing in Georgia dates back to Christianity, which arrived in Georgia in the 4th century. As early as 2001, Georgian polyphonic music was featured as one of the first entries on UNESCO’s list of “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”.
The genre has been used by both Werner Herzog and the Coen Brothers in their movies, who have balanced their counter-culture films with songs that sound not only like they were from a time before we knew what time it was, but also like they were coming down from the sky. Hamlet Gonashvili, the owner of one of the sweetest voices ever recorded, was a huge star in the genre.
Gonashvili died in 1985, at the height of his fame and acclaim outside his home country, as a result of falling from an apple tree. When you listen to the atmospheric, tragic-sounding songs he recorded, you will see how appropriate this way of dying seems.
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