The Tom Vater Collection at the British Library to be digitally preserved

This recording is part of the Tom Vater Collection (C799) at the British Library. A longer extract has been published on The Moken: sea gypsies of the Andaman Sea (Topic Records TSCD919, 2001).  The full collection also includes recordings from India, Laos and Cambodia. It will be digitally preserved as part of the Unlocking our […]

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My catalogue of field recordings from Asia at The British Library.

Between 1995 and 2004 I recorded several hundred hours of music and sounds from Asia for The British Library’s National Sound Archive – material from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, India and Nepal. I recorded mostly the music of minorities and musicians in remote rural locations. I released several CD collections of […]

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British Library holds a significant collection of Lao material – including unpublished recordings of remote populations by Tom Vater

Hmong Lao Khaen player in Vientiane 2001 The British Library holds a small but significant collection of Lao material, consisting of manuscripts, rare printed books, periodicals and post cards, mainly acquired after 1973. However, the oldest items in Lao language date back to the 19th century. The earliest book about Laos is in Italian and […]

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British Library launches campaign to save the sounds of history

My writing career started right here, at the British Library’s National Sound Archive. I went to see them in 1993 after my first return from India. I was interested in the music of indigenous communities in the region and approached the National Sound Archive’s International Music Collection with an offer of recording and documenting the […]

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The Sounds of the Moken – Sea Gypsies of Southeast Asia

I used to work with the British Library’s Sound Archive a decade ago and collected and documented music from around Asia for the library’s International Music Collection. Several ethnographic CDs of this work were released in the 90s, the rest sits in London and is accessible to researchers. The music of the Moken Sea Gypsies […]

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The Moken – Die Musik der Seenomaden Südostasiens auf CD – The Moken – Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea – CD, by Topic Records (UK)

The Moken – Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea ist in Zusammenarbeit mit der British Library bei Topic Records (UK) erschienen. Die Lieder der Moken, der letzten Seenomaden der Andamanischen See, wurden 1999 von Tom Vater auf Ko Surin, einem Inselarchipel vor der Westküste Thailands, aufgenommen. Fotos von Aroon Thaewchatturat. Liner notes von Tom Vater The Moken […]

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