Drumming and Chanting in God's Own Country: The Temple Music of Kerala in South India (review)

This disc is the latest in Rolf Killius's series of at least six CDs of the primarily percussive Hindu temple music of Kerala. A recent recipient of the M.Mus. in Ethnomusicology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Killius describes himself in his thesis as an "ethnomusicologist, sound recordist, radio journalist, music researcher and computer analyst" (Killius 2003), and has made two lengthy trips to India to record and document its traditional music. He spent the first, between 1995 and 1997, exclusively in Kerala; for the second, between 2000 and 2002, he traveled in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and the Andhra Pradesh/Orissa border area, as well as in Kerala. The latter trip was part of the British Library Sound Archive's "Traditional Music of India" project, and he deposited 153 hours of the audio and video recordings he made during both trips into this archive. The material for his CDs has been taken from this collection. His master's thesis, which covers some of the same material as the opening chapters of my own Ph.D. dissertation (Groesbeck 1995), is a general introduction to the temple music culture of Kerala. He has covered the same topic in more abbreviated form in his article in the Rough Guide to World Music, volume 2 (Killius 2000).

Killius is thus to be commended for his copious (to say the least) contributions to Kerala studies, and specifically for this CD. One of its highlights is the initial recording of Ayyappan Pattu (group non-specialist songs, with drum accompaniment, to the god Ayyappan). This genre is one of the most ubiquitous in Kerala today, as it is always sung by pilgrims before they embark on their journeys to the celebrated Ayyappan temple in Sabarimala (south Kerala). No one can travel in Kerala between mid-November and mid-January without observing the black-clad men who make these trips. Aside from a track on one of Killius's lesser-known recordings (Tune in to the Sounds of Kerala; Killius 2002), this is the only commercially available recording of this genre of which I am aware, and thus it constitutes a major addition to the extant Kerala discography.

Another highlight is the two samples of high-caste temple vocal music (sopana sangitam) sung by the lauded Nyerelath Rama Poduval (whose caste name is curiously spelled on the CD's liner notes "Pooduval"). Killius recorded these just before Nyerelath's death, and they remain to my knowledge the only commercially available recordings made by this noted artist. Some connoisseurs consider him the leading performer of this genre in recent memory, although it may be a stretch to contend that "with him one of the oldest Sopanam styles has disappeared" (p. 10). Three other infrequently recorded and welcome genres on this CD are "Kombu Pattu," a performance for the semicircular horn (accompanied by tala-keeping cymbals); "Kurum Kuzhal Pattu," a solo for a small shawm with drum (chenda) and cymbal accompaniment; and "Keli," in this instance a duet for barrel drum (maddalam) and chenda, also accompanied by a tala-keeping idiophone. All three of these genres appear frequently at the beginnings of processions at Kerala temples, immediately after the solo chenda performance "Tayampaka," and "Keli" occurs before dance drama (Kathakali) performances as well. These three tracks admirably fill a lacuna in the discography of Kerala music.

These inclusions complement the recordings on this CD of much better known Kerala drumming genres, specifically Pancavadyam and a variety of Chenda Melam. These are processional drum orchestras that have appeared on a number of earlier CDs (and videos), including several of Killius's own. Killius is to be praised for choosing the somewhat rarely heard "AtantaMelam" (a drum, shawm, and...