Tristes Tropiques

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2015-06-09

Label: Tiny Room Records

IF we visit a place once inhabited by a lost culture, we can open a door to
the deep past if we remember that every feature of the landscape was
once part of a story or imbued with sacred meanings. There may still be
human beings living in that place - people who have forgotten the story-
worlds of their ancestors - but somehow the forest, the river, the island,
the desert, or the mountain remembers.

With this collection of music, my aim is to give shape to the shapeless
melancholy hanging in the air in places where organic human culture has
vanished or is on the decline. Because I am a distant observer of so-called
primitive cultures, this has been a romantic exercise.

TRISTES TROPIQUES
From the title of the book by French Anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss.
The literal translation is Sad Tropics. The English version of the title is
World On The Wane, referring to the vanishing culture-worlds of the last
remaining small-scale societies on Earth - those in the process of being
swallowed by an ever expanding global civilization. Most of these iso-
lated cultures are found in the tropic belt, hence the title. The music on
this album is not inspired directly by the book itself, I simply borrowed
the title.

-Todd Tobias



Written, performed and recorded by Todd Tobias.
toddtobiasmusic.bandcamp.com

Tiny Room Records 2015 / TR005 / tinyroom.nl
Publishing by Hidden Shoal / hiddenshoal.com
Thanks to Stefan Breuer, Thijs Kuijken and Cam Merton.

More Pictures