Description
The Brao number 60 000 people and live in Southern Laos and North East Cambodia. They belong to the Mon-khmer ethno-linguistic family and are the first inhabitants of this area. As with other ethnic groups in Cambodia and Vietnam, animist ceremonies feature gong ensembles accompanying buffalo sacrifices and rice alcohol consumption.
Playing gongs requires as many people as gongs. On this cd, the various Brao subgroup of Attapeu and Champasak provinces (Southern Laos) perform with different number of gongs (3 gongs is rare, 5 gongs has become the norm, 8 or 10 or 13 are also being played together) and different gongs (the nipple gongs being more or less called "gwag", the flat gong called "ceng" and additional pair of cymbals called "char").