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All over the map >> Local label Oliver Sudden brings home the world by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
Etch's preservationist efforts have saddled him with a veritable greenhouse of rare and exotic sonic species. Over here we've got Lei Qiang and Liu Fang doing the Chinese classical thing, on the erhu and pipa respectively. Over there we've got flamenco-meister Juan José Carranza and Paraguayan harpist Eralio Gill. We've even got field recordings of the Mount Royal tam tam jams (no word yet on the patchouli-scented scratch 'n' sniff dust jacket). Make room, though, because there's traditional Vietnamese and North Indian music ready to bloom any day now. Etch notes the rich history of the music he's been tending and pruning. "Some of the Chinese music," he says, "has been around 1200 years. Which means it has been through wars, floods and famines. If a song survives that, then it's an obvious, real hit. It has stood the test of time." Etch's musical travels have recently taken him to Colombia and Stockholm, but more often he's a regular armchair Marco Polo. "Because I don't have the budget of say, Sony Music, I have to work with what I have. But lucky for me, Montreal has a conglomerate of all kinds of different cultures. If I was doing this in Austin, Texas or someplace, I might have a bit of a problem. Here it's really happening because it's so diverse." Meanwhile, the Oliver Sudden posse is getting due attention outside the 514 area code. Lei Qiang is currently in Vegas, opening for Cirque de Soleil (Wayne Newton was booked), Liu Fang has just returned from a gig in Bogota, Colombia, and Carranza's spicy stylings are selling like hotcakes all over. Regardless, Oliver Sudden is still largely a labour of love. "It's not so much that the music is ignored, but more that it is not accessible. Preserving music is the whole point--to see what happened in the past so that you can see where you're going in the future."
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"There are two types of world music," explains Paul Etch, the man behind the Oliver Sudden record label. "As in jazz, there's the traditional stuff for the purist. Then there's worldbeat, which is mixing all kinds of music. I'm more into the traditional, keeping it as authentic as possible, not mixing samplers with this and that... which is what sells! But I'm not in it for the money, so that doesn't bother me. It's not for sales, it's to keep the music alive."