Saigon Supersound Continues to present more interesting tunes of a musical era that has long been obscured. With the well received Volume 1, we are very delighted to dig deeper and share with you the beautiful music of a short but significant period in Vietnam‘s history.

"Hanoi Masters: War is a Wound, Peace is Scar" is a haunting audio document recorded in the summer of 2014 by Grammy-award winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Malawi Mouse Boys, The Good Ones). The sepia-tinged songs are sung and played live and direct by elderly Vietnamese musicians using half-forgotten traditional instruments. These musicians all have deep personal connections to the upheavals of the Vietnam War and the album's mesmerizing mood navigates the blurred line between raw beauty and muted sadness. 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, a war these Hanoi musicians still call the "American War", the wounds and scars of that era are ever-present. "Hanoi Masters" is an album of cautious healing and an unforgettable meditation on conflict, resistance, collective memory, and the longing for what has been lost.

Saigon Soul Revival has been on a quest to reawaken the raw, enchanting sounds of 1960s and 70s Vietnam; a time when passionate music resonated in Saigon's streets and clubs with messages of love, heartache, hope and freedom. Amongst the turmoil of war, there was a rich cultural climate that fused popular genres of the day like rock, soul and bolero with Vietnamese music and lyrics. This fusion of sounds that bridged east and west became forbidden after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and almost vanished. Four decades later Saigon Soul Revival was born with the initial purpose of bringing these dormant sounds back to the stage. After numerous live performances over the last 3 years, the band has developed their own sound and now, with the release of their debut album “Họa Âm Xưa”, they are ready to share it with the rest of the world.

A whole sociological study could probably be based around Saigon Rock & Soul, a double-album compilation of killer Vietnamese pop/rock tracks from the late ‘60s to mid-‘70s, but that will be left to more academically minded types in order to focus on the music at hand. The tunes included here were surely the product of Western music's influence, as American soldiers brought the sounds of U.S. rock, pop, and soul along with them over the course of the Vietnam War. By the late ‘60s, a whole subgenre of than nac ("modern music") had emerged, as hordes of young Vietnamese musicians absorbed and emulated the music that arrived from overseas. Besides local clubs, many of the artists featured here performed – and often recorded – at U.S. army bases, where the soldiers made up a major portion of their fan base.

From the lyrical sensuality of Hu-Die (for 2 guitars), the aggressive fireworks of Hwang Chin-Ee (for two drummers) and the mystical ambience of Que Tran (for two keyboards), this album shows yet another side of Zorn's genius for the dramatic and the unexpected. Using the spoken languages of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese as pure melody, this suite of 3 pieces of twin instruments and narrators is perhaps Zorn's most beautiful creation to date. Ten years in the making, these epic compositions, Zorn's most universally misunderstood pieces, are finally made available on an album. Original texts by Arto Lindsay, My-ung Mi-Kim, and Lin Hejinian. Performed by an all-star collection of the world's most creative improvising instrumentalists.