El Abranis

El Abranis

January 1, 2011, 7:47 pm
Filed under: Algeria

♬ Athedjaladde

♬ Ayetheri-A L’Afjare

Recently, I was asked: With all of the compilations and blogs out there, do you think that you will run out of music to find? The short answer is ‘Yes’. As it stands now, it is getting more and more difficult. There are only a finite number of records from that time period that were pressed. But what that number is, nobody really knows.

A good example is the Bollywood Steel records. When I put together the compilation for Sublime Frequencies, I thought I had found pretty much all there was to find. I knew that I was missing a record or two, but I think at the time I had maybe 25-30 records. Since then I’ve found at least 60 more – and counting. I bought three yesterday!

Another thing to consider, is that as collectors – I mean archivists – accumulate these records, they hear stuff outside of their original focus. In the process of searching for Thai Beat records, people have stumbled onto Shadow Music, Molam, Luk Thung and the many other wonderful mutations from Thailand. So the number of records out there is not exactly static.

But as more and more folks get clued into these recordings, there are now more people hunting down the original vinyl. And it has gotten quite competitive. When I started this site, there were only a dozen or two compilations and maybe a handful of websites. Now? I cannot even keep track of what’s become available.

The good news is that we are probably going to get to hear those records… Eventually.

Both of these songs were featured on the first volume of the Waking Up Scheherazade compilations. For further information on Les Abranis, as they were to be known after this single – which was their first, please check out the previous post.

Catalog number 11102 on Oasis Disques of Paris, France, released 1973.

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