What's known as the American War in Vietnam (and the Vietnam War to the US) is not some historical artifact, lost in the recent past, but a period of terror and fear with reverberations sounding in the present tense. Let's hope that in its quiet way War Is a Wound, Peace Is a Scar - the first release in a new series called Hidden Musics - does something to promote healing for those Vietnamese who experienced the war, as well as their descendants who live with its memory.
This is an exercise in making the past audible. The album consists of 11 songs, performed solo by now-elderly singers, often accompanied by instruments barely heard these days: the plucked or bowed k'ni, which is held in the mouth; the two-string moon lute and monochord.
