Jean-Louis Derche traveled to India in the summer of 1971 and faithfully recorded temple music in several out-of-the-way locations. Even more remarkable are his unusual recordings made in the streets of Benares, Chidambaran, Madurai, Tanjour, and Trivandrum. Listen to the sounds of rickshaws; a walk down a narrow street; craftsmen hammering metal; and the timeless flow of the Ganges River. Derche’s companion, photographer Monique Sidi, provided illustrations of the journey, for use in the September 1972 KPFA Folio. Mr. Derche, a computer scientist in Berkeley at the time of this KPFA recording in 1972, has since disappeared from sight. This was his first and only known radio project. |
