A Lot on My Crate

A girl in Bangkok, Thailand named Salin Cheewapansri, had such a strong affinity to music that she would dip her toes into drums after being entranced into grunge music. Later, Salin would do many gigs in the streets and in the studio and then would move into the States and eventually in Montreal, Canada where she resides to this day. Her passion is music and uses not only her culture, but others as well. Mainly afrobeats, soul, or funk, genres that aren’t conventional to Thai ears are what fascinates Salin and hence, uses them as vessels to deliver her amalgamation of this melting pot of sounds to her audiences as shown in her debut album Cosmic Island as well as Rammana. Off a coast of southern Thailand, are a group of aboriginal people known as the Urak Lawoi, where Salin got her inspiration with the title. The saying, “Rammana: is sung by the Urak Lawoi in celebration at a floating boat ceremony. That is what this album symbolizes and paints itself as, a celebration. Cheewapansri has made a colorful, lush project that is not only catchy in its world beats, but blends it very well with Thai and afrobeats instrumentation. Looking at the credits of this LP is eye opening on how their sound was executed to achieve this aesthetic. You got not only drums, strings, and brass, but as well as ngoma drums, a phin (a type of lute from Thailand), a khene (a reed instrument of many bamboos), and many more instruments whose names I’ve also never heard of. Not only that, but Salin just absolutely slays on the drum set on all of these tracks that would make jazzheads involuntarily bob to the rhythm. This album was a fun listen and Cheewapansri states the purpose of this mostly instrumental project, Rammana and that is to make it danceable, which in my opinion succeeds with flying colors. And boy howdy, how colorful this album has become.

The opener is a good prep on where you’re at, but not know what’s in store for you. The isolated hand drums that accelerate with these Thai chants from far away seem like a ritual in “Pam Intro”. But does a complete 180 in the next track, “Ma’at”. It goes into these Fela Kuti inspired brass and funky keys with these same chants. It’s such a refreshing turnaround sound in what was spiritual, is now a groove by heart. The funky vibes continue with “Current” and “Egungun”, which sounds like a scenario in which one sneaks around the city at night for the former and more romantic intimate moment for the latter. Anyone who is into the Seatbelts would be enamored with this sound. However, the second act of this record is where its stars shine brightest as the interlude eases into “Painted Lady” and goes into deep intimate blues with toned down brass, shiny keys, and sexy licks from the bass. It’s a recognizable slow burner, but this song would go very well with a glass of good wine and a Barry White voice-over with how smooth this sound is. And now the album goes back into this fun hybrid of mixing Eastern and Western instrumentals for “Being Here”. With these eastern in the background being the backbone of the jazz band. It has a killer outro and jazz flute solo too. This whole blend makes this tapestry much more mysterious, textured, and colorful. My favorite track “Puaj” sounds so trippy with this out of this world background instrumental beat that’s like some kind of jaw harp. This itself makes it so much fun with this unique sound within funk. I need more stuff like this. Please, give me more like this. “Si Chomphu” is more funk goodness that seems more guitar centric and makes it very much engaging. It has these hand drums and eastern percussive bits that just support the guitars upright. And that seems to be the statement Salin gives in the last half of the album. The instrumentals from around the globe support each other. And then we close out with the titular track, “Rammana”. It is such a beautiful and wholesome closer and could easily be the best way to close this record. It is Salin’s interpolation of the folk song and her gift to not only Thai folk, but everyone around the globe. It’s beautiful, funky, ornate, and hands down the most emotional on the album.

The second half of the Rammana, is much more stronger in theme and sound than the first. Either the Eastern instruments are either not present or not pronounced enough in some of the tracks, especially the first half did kind of hurt Salin’s statement a little bit. If she is wanting to give more attention to the other sounds and bring it over the other cultures, I felt in my opinion she should’ve shined the spotlight more on that sound.

On the behind the scenes of Rammana, Salin said this album’s purpose was to bring Western and Thai cultures together. Not to become experimental, which is a fortunate byproduct of this album, but to let the people of Thailand love themselves and what their culture has provided them. Western music is so ingrained and ubiquitous into all of us, is what makes us miss or take for granted what’s next to us. There are so many great sounds out there and it would be such a pity if we miss them and they disappear into the ether. It’s such a noble goal what they’ve done and much of that is achieved here. It’s an amazing collaboration by many people from different backgrounds to put together this colorful project that it needs to be celebrated. And that’s what Rammana is here. A celebration.

FAVORITE TRACKS: LAM INTRO, MA’AT, PAINTED LADY, BEING HERE, PUAJ, SI CHOMHU, RAMMANA

LEAST FAVORITE: CURRENT

You can purchase this album on Bandcamp and her discography is also available for streaming.

https://salinmusic.bandcamp.com/album/rammana