“This recording of the sound of genuine talking drums was made on the banks of the Congo River near Stanleyville, where the river steamers coming up-stream from Leopoldville, 1000 mlies away, are held up by the first rapids named after H.M. Stanley, the great explorer. He first saw them in 1876 on his famous first journey across from east to west. The Lokele of this region have always been famous for their drum messages. Stanley, writing about them said ‘They have not yet adopted electric signals but possess a system of communication quite as effective. Their huge drums, by being struck in several parts, convey language as clear to the initiated as vocal speech’. The drum messages can still be heard up an down the river although nowadays, with modern communication methods, the people do not need to use their drums as they used to, and consequently it is said to be dying out, as so many other African crafts. A missionary the Rev. John Carrington, from the Baptist mission at Yakusu wrote an excellent book on these Lokele talking drums of the Upper Congo River, the same kind of drums that Stanley heard. For years he had been studying the Lokele language of the people around the mission at Yakusu, but at the time of recording he was many miles down the river, and not available. His colleague from the Yakusu mission Rev. W.H. Ford, who had also made a keen study of the language, here explains something of the theory behind the sending of drum messages in central Congo, as experienced both by himself and by John Carrington.” So wrote HT in 1952. By now, this form of communication — and at the same time art-form — has indeed died out and that makes this extraordinary document invaluable. At the beginning of this recording there was much interference due to problems with HT’s equipment, in all probability humidity in the microphone, but after a couple of minutes it simply disappears. Note that the Rev. Ford is incorrect when he states that talking drums were only to be found along the upper Congo river: on SWP 011 ‘Kanyok and Luba’ HT recorded talking drums played along the tributaries of the Kasai River in southern Congo.

Forest Music Liner Notes pg.17