Baluchistan / Various - Baluchistan [CD]

The main instruments in Baluchi music are recorded on this album -the most prominent (the sorud fiddle), the oldest (the doneli double flute), and the most recent and brilliant (the benju zither)- that presents the art of a freedom-loving nomadic people, living from hand to mouth and always on the move. The Baluchi are a people of about five million individuals, scattered mainly across Pakistan (of which they occupy nearly half), the South-East of Iran, Afghanistan and the Emirates of the Persian Gulf, where they form a large immigrant community. Because of their origins and language, they belong to the Iranian world; they seem to have occupied first the centre of Iran (Kermân), or perhaps even the north, before migrating towards the southeast. It was only in the 18th century that a Baluchi national identity arose. It won over and brought together various tribes, essentially on the condition that they would speak the same language. Probably around that time, epic poetry was developed between them, thus unifying all the groups and sub-groups, whatever nuances there might be, into an entity which we now call the Baluchi people.