[ a non-commercial project ]

There can be no more to be added to Brion Gysin's spine-chilling description of the Rites of Pan Festival, particularyly by myself who has never witnessed the weeek-long chaos; in fact I don't know if I possess the stamina to endure the incredible, constant strain of the festival. Such psychic weaklings has Western civilization made of so many of us. Joujouka yet has to have a road built thereto; is without electricity, plumbing; in short all the "comforts" without which the majority of us would cry out in agonised discomfort. In fact there is no school as such. All knowledge and culture is passed down from mother to child until the age of twelve, at which age the father-community watches over the tender years of the boys and the young girls are not further to be seen until they are married off. What exists here is a specially chosen representation of the type of music which is played and chanted during the festival. The pieces and therefore the climaxes are necessarily shortened and when one considers that many of these chants continue for hours and hours, one will realize this necessity. We apologise for the virtual inaudibility of the lead singer during the chanting of the women but she and the others are singing not to an audience of mortals, but rather they are chanting an incantation those of another plane, and while we were recording her, she hid her beautiful vioce behind the drum she was playing. It was not for our ears. Anyway we hope to have captured the spirit and magic of Joujouka.

 

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