back in July, i was on tour and driving alone from Albuquerque to Phoenix.
it was early in the morning and i had been driving for quite a few hours and was slightly loopy. i was listening to the car radio, searching around for something even remotely interesting - rare progressive talk, an oldies station, maybe some old country music - when i stumbled on a radio station, KTNN 660 AM, broadcasting out of Window Rock, Arizona and was hit by something so beautiful and so moving, i literally pulled over to listen to it more closely.
it was a simple sound i was hearing. a drum of some kind, something primitive and hollow-sounding, was keeping the timing up. and there were voices. many voices, many voices. the voices were singing out words in unison but the singing was more like a repetitive chanting, with background voices shadowing a lead voice, going from a low, almost guttural tone to a much higher, near-wail that made the hairs on my neck stand up.
the recordings i was hearing sounded old, like maybe they were field recordings made in the 40’s or 50’s. there was no reverb or studio trickery.
the chanting seemed to go on forever and ever and at that moment, i was really hoping that it would. it was stunning and breathtaking and i had no idea why. i couldn’t make out what the voices were saying but i recognized that it was of Native American origin immediately. every once in awhile, i’d think i could detect English words but for the most part, it was a language i am positive I had never heard before.
i must have sat in my rental car on the Arizona roadside for an hour. the engine was off, the windows were cracked open a tad and i enjoyed the mysterious sounds coming from the radio for as long as I possibly could before a live DJ interrupted everything with advertisements hawking plumbing and insurance services.
the station billed itself as “the voice of the Navajo Nation’. i was listening to Navajo music and could only assume that some of what i was listening to was ceremonial and spiritual in nature. maybe it wasn’t music that was suppose to have been hitting my ears but I sure was happy and grateful that it did.
i don’t have moment like this anymore.
like the first time i heard real and old reggae, recorded in tiny, ramshackle studios in Kingston, Jamaica, playing on my friend’s record player in 1974.
or the first time I tuned into an AM christian radio station in Reno back in 1981 on a Sunday morning (after a night of live punk rock) and actually sat and listened to urban gospel songs and could practically envision a large gathering of families playing and singing during actual church services.
i don’t have new, exciting, mysterious moments like this anymore. i wish i could. i really wish i could.
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vanillasludge reblogged this from kevinseconds and added:
for relavance. KevinSeconds is...favorite Tumblr-er.
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