I’m grateful to Vanley Burke’s recent Desert island discs for opening my ears to this fantastic archive compilation from 1956 in the ever-stimulating Smithsonian Folkways series:

Always showing their African origins, the tracks of the kumina magico-religious cult, as well as the Revival Zion and Pukkumina Christian cults, are particularly fascinating—further explored on an earlier album, Jamaican cult music (1954).

There’s plenty of material here to help us consider diverse ways of using the voice—and percussion—to communicate with mortals and gods. And as ever, the soundscape should lead us to explore the changing society.