Ralph Koper — Ancient Pulsations

3Leaves presents Ancient Pulsations by Dutch Poet Ralph Koper. Anyone familiar with the 3Leaves imprint, knows they are one of the premiere outlets for global field recordings. On Ancient Pulsations, we are treated to a nearly hour long CD culled from the sounds of Varanasi (a city in northern India near the banks of the river Ganges).

In my younger days I dabbled in Hindu philosophy and became a practitioner of Krishna Consciousness. While my spiritual pursuits never quite brought me to the holy land of India, I did become quite immersed in Indian culture. Ancient Pulsations, rekindles a lot of those old memories from a former life.

Recorded during hot and humid, days and nights in April of 2004, Koper’s primary goal was to simply capture field recordings of Varanasi. Through a multi-page, full color booklet, Koper adds additional photos and documentation to further flesh out his journey. Regretfully, my copy must’ve been in direct heat during shipping and all the booklet pages stuck together. From what I was able to glean from the brittle pages, Koper encountered: boisterous bhajans, road-blocking cows, aggressive monkeys, temples, shrines, cremation grounds, dogfights, and miles and miles of the Ganges.

Much of the sounds presented on Ancient Pulsations are variations of boatmen navigating down the river, animal sounds, and indigenous devotional music. Many of the music based recordings feature: conch shells blowing, bells, hand cymbals, homegrown percussions, and vocals often aided by use of a megaphone. There were a number of pieces that were either repetitious or lacking activity. So there was as much focus on the mundane as there is on the song and dance.

Through all my travels with labels such as 3Leaves, I think this is my first journey to India. Big thanks to Ralph Koper for the tour.