Your favorite ersatz ethnic music.

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The choicest patently-inauthentic (preferably studio-created) "ethnic" music you know!

I'll take Peggy Lee's "Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba"--almost-convincing Moroccan snake-charmer music.

Space Negros Do Generic Ethnic Muzak Versions of All Your Favorite Punk/Psychedelic Songs from the Sixties is undoubtedly the landmark in the genre, however.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Novos answeros.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:31 (twenty-three years ago)

No nevermind I'm getting "Chi-Baba" confused with another song. Anyways.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Yma Sumac- Fake polynesian!

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Martin Denny's "Quiet Village." Caw! Caw!

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Sun City Girls.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:40 (twenty-three years ago)

You are so right. When they came to Chicago SCG performed this beautiful lugubrious falsetto psuedo-Indonesian pop ballad (with lyrics that were presumably improvised doggerel) that was as good as anything on Folkways' Music of Indonesia series. Mr. Stencil, do you know what record that might be on?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:42 (twenty-three years ago)

well you'd have to narrow it down, Am, 'cause they played a buncha stuff like that in NYC.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:44 (twenty-three years ago)

i'll just give the one i'm listening to right now, davey graham

― JasonD (JasonD), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Mr. Stencil: It kinda went like this: ooooohgdyllllarrrrr oooaaaatreeeeellllgorrroooo wheeeeeeeee um um um brutttttttghhhhhhhhh lllllaaaaaa llllllaaaaaa ooooooooo.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Most of Camper Van have that ersatz ethnic musico thing going...do they count?

― thomas de'aguirre (biteylove), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe something offa 330,003 Crossdressers from Beyond the Big Veda? That's my guess.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 18 March 2003 19:47 (twenty-three years ago)

or a new composition?
i wish i coulda seen SCG live.

― j fail (cenotaph), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:06 (twenty-three years ago)

you could make up scg's album titles all day

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

I know jess! That's a real one!

― hstencil, Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:12 (twenty-three years ago)

ball monkeys under ruined temple light

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:13 (twenty-three years ago)

gal costa "tuareg" is so, so, so, so, so good.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a tape of songs that is designed to encourage children to eat fruits and vegetables, and all are based on the "If you eat a Chiquita banana" psuedo-calypso tune.

― Fivvy (Fivvy), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:24 (twenty-three years ago)

ooooohgdyllllarrrrr oooaaaatreeeeellllgorrroooo wheeeeeeeee um um um brutttttttghhhhhhhhh lllllaaaaaa llllllaaaaaa ooooooooo.
That descirbes most of their output. I'm going to take a guess and say it's "My Friend RAIN" off of Sumatrain Electric Chair.

Wade deep Amateurist if your so inclined. Eclipse is supposedly reissuing 10!!double!!LP!! sets!! of the cassette records..My wallet is burning

― brg30 (brg30), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Hahaha I'm broke so everyone on this thread should go straight to their CD burners and copy me the entire SCG discography.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Am, I gotta burn some SCG for other peeps, so I could copy some for you.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Amateurist, I'm pretty sure what you're looking for is "Eye Mohini". It's from a 7".

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:45 (twenty-three years ago)

't seems, we've been forgetting 'bout Can's 'ethnic forgery series' thus far
(or did they actually call them 'ethnological forgery' or sth? those briefish song-bits on several records of theirs)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 22:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Khaled and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan are/were both great. Evidence that there is much more to ethnic music than just drums and percussion...

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 01:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Geir, my favorite ersatz Norweigan.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 02:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Police, "Mother", not cuz its 'best' but cuz its 'ersatziest'

― dave q, Wednesday, 19 March 2003 11:13 (twenty-three years ago)

ULLA!

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Mr. Bungle! Sun City Girls!

― matt riedl (veal), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Yma Sumac was fake Peruvian, I think you'll find. not that it makes *that* much difference if we're talking ersatz ethnic...

― Mr Binturong (Mr Binturong), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Geir, this thread is for fake ethnic music.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Hank Snow's "Hula Rock"

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:50 (twenty-three years ago)

astral weeks & fairport convention

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

also skrewdriver

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

and big country

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

rage against the machine

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 15:51 (twenty-three years ago)

three weeks pass...

Amateurist, there was a song "Haji Baba," sung by Johnny Mathis, from a movie that I think might also have been called "Haji Baba." It was really dreadful, and even funnier now that I am familiar with Arabic music than it was when I heard it as a kid, because the melody for part of it really is stereotypically Arab.

Geir, have you heard Oum Kalthoum?

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 13 April 2003 23:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Dead can Dance (does that work as an answer?)

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 14 April 2003 04:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Better than you know.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Monday, 14 April 2003 05:18 (twenty-three years ago)

icy hot stuntaz (YO!)

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 14 April 2003 05:21 (twenty-three years ago)

i like the rap songs by SCG and the old Residents' albums (like Eskimo)

― george gosset (gegoss), Monday, 14 April 2003 06:17 (twenty-three years ago)

The Residents - "Eskimo"

― Dadaismus, Monday, 14 April 2003 11:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Ghedalia Tazartés! Dada-damaged sound dis/organizations and vocal poetics that cavort between the real Near East and an alien Inter-zone simulacrum of same. music as loveable as it is lunatic.

i like Roberto Musci & Giovanni Venosta. they've been tinkering with the Eno/Byrne (read: Czukay/Dammers) formula for years, forging ersatz ethno from samples of the real thing. not nearly as pointless as it sounds; often very enjoyable. Michael Banabila does something similar, with more mixed results.

and, er... Muslimgauze?

― summerslastsound (summerslastsound), Monday, 14 April 2003 14:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Jacques Berrocal/Dominique Coster/Roger Ferlet, Musiq Musik (Fractal, 017) CD

― hstencil, Monday, 14 April 2003 14:42 (twenty-three years ago)

jon hassell: 'vernal equinox', 'possible musics' (w/ eno), 'dream theory in malaya', 'aka-dabari-java', 'flash of the spirit' are all first tier.

'earthquake island', 'power spot' and 'surgeon of the nightsky restores dead things by the power of sound' (which sounds like an in-studio live album) are also pretty great...

― milton, Monday, 14 April 2003 15:47 (twenty-three years ago)

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