Review
Brian Diettrich PhD, ethnomusicologist
(New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University Wellington)
People’s lives on the low-lying islands of the Pacific are challenged by social and environmental factors, but popular song offers insights into continuing ways of life for these island communities. A new album, called Island Micronesia: Electronic Melodies, sung by the Lamo Serai Boyz from Lamotrek Island in the central Caroline atolls of Micronesia and produced by Triton Films Studio (in California), provides just such a perspective.
Lamotrek, part of Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia, is well known in the Pacific for the revival of traditional practices of navigation and voyaging, but this album focuses on new music sung and played with Yamaha electronic keyboards, ubiquitous instruments across Micronesia. The resulting “electronic melodies”, as the Lamo Serai Boyz call their work, present an eclectic range of song styles, with sentimental ballads and fast-paced dance beats, and they demonstrate the continuing impact of country and reggae styles as important vehicles for community expression in Micronesia.
Listeners familiar with Micronesian music will hear the enduring influence here of local Chuukese ballads, widely emulated in the region, and with characteristic wide ranges, melodic leaps, and distinctively Chuukese phrase endings. The melodies of “It’s Difficult For Me" (Yai Waires) and “Paddling Out” (Fefatulwei), for example, both suggest familiar Chuukese popular songs. An understanding of the sung poetry on the album is assisted by helpful translations that accompany each song and an introduction by Eric Metzgar, PhD.
The ten songs of the album illustrate everyday experiences and challenges that are representative of island lives in the central Carolines, including themes of love and gossip, fishing and life on the sea, Christianity, and the challenges of distance and being away from others, in the coming-and-going that is part of life on Lamotrek. A few songs highlight resources on the island, such as “Noddy Terns" (Kurakak) that describes a meal of the birds with rice “so we won’t be hungry”, while other songs give attention to preferences of tobacco and betel nut. Two very intimate and moving songs describe cross-generational wishes from women composers: “It’s Difficult For Me" (Yai Waires) presents a grandmother’s hope for her grandson to “stay a little longer”, while “Blooming Flowers" (Yatil Rupwaku) recounts a mother’s message for her children — three flowers in the song — that “my love for you will never disappear”.
For listeners familiar with song poetry in the Caroline Islands, these songs are representative of how music in Micronesia reveals the intimacies of everyday life among friends, extended family, and loved ones. The songs collected here offer windows into the experiences of Lamotrek lives, of parting, loss, faith, and love, and the resulting messages bring listeners in touch with the hopes and desires on the island and in its networks across the central Caroline atolls.
The album’s notes describe how Lamotrek faces increasing environmental pressures from climate change, and the resulting sale of the music will help purchase food resources for the community. This statement cautions us how the sung lives presented here are increasingly under threat. Island Micronesia presents new music for global consumption, but it also challenges us to consider the wider implications of environmental disruptions for Pacific communities.
Supporters will hope that the songs of Lamotrek will find increasing listeners across the Pacific and internationally. This is an excellent album, and it will be of wide interest to individuals and institutions invested in music and culture, as well as anyone searching for a deeper hearing of Micronesia.
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