buy it
Here's a disc I let slip by for a few months--ironic since it's one of my favorite 2005 releases. Guitars of the Golden Triangle is another backpack of cassettes from the hinterlands of Southeast Asia, committed to CD as-is by Sublime Frequencies. It's a collection of 70s rock tunes from Burma, now known as Myanmar. For most of us, what we know about this country centers on the heroin trade and Myanmar's oppressive military junta. Listening to this disc will give you a better feel for the Burmese as real people than pulp novels about the CIA or another article about Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

When I dropped Guitars into my computer, my music player happened to arrange the tracks by artist name. This has turned out to be my preferred way of listening to this compilation, as it allows for the distinct styles of the different musicians to really come through.

Saing Saing Maw has the most tracks, all obviously duped from the same totally hammered cassette. I like the patina of grunge on SF tracks--it gives you a sense of where the music's been and how far it's come to find you--though in this case the sonic degradation is pretty severe. Nevertheless, one fact shines through--Saing Saing Maw is fucking great. He writes thoroughly melodic psychedelic pop with inventive musical asides and stronger rhythm players than you find on a lot of old Asian pop. "Lah Ley Cham" has the kind of echoey Asian tremolo picked guitar solo I live for, which crumbles into a perfectly ridiculous non-sequitur jazz drum solo.

Maw's not alone. Lashio Thein Aung has a charming, squeaky-clean Buddy Holly vibe on "You Got What You Got" but moves into a more regional sound for "Don't Say Goodbye." All of his tracks feature excellent tremolo-picked guitar. Khun Paw Yann contributes three perfect psychedelic ballads that sound similar to some of the more haunting tracks from the Thai Beat A Go Go series.