FROM ROCK 'N 'ROLL TO HARD CORE PUNK - UKZN ...

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multi-cultural approach to music making, an approach very foreign
to the segregated South African audiences of the time. The large
Indian population in Natal, with their own distinctive classical
music genre was undoubtedly an inspiration for their adoption of
the sitar. It could also be proposed that the introduction of the
sitar was inspired by The Beatles whose later albums explored
sounds outside the western rock paradigm, including that of the
sitar.
As has been mentioned, a progressive band in the late 1960s and
1970s performed music primarily for listening, and for
communicating a message, rather than for dancing. Totum is very
much a listening (as opposed to dancing) album in that although
cover versions comprise the majority of the album, they are
mostly folk-rock ballads which are experimentally performed. The
large amount of instrumental music on the album also encourages
careful listening. Abstract Truth recreate songs, they place
their own stamp on them, and in so doing they make the songs
their own. An example is a performance of Gershwin, du Bose and
Heyward's 'Summertime', in which the flute is featured. Although
the famous melody line is clearly articulated in the beginning,
the band soon move into a rendition of the piece, in which the
bongo drums create a quasi-Afro-Latin-American feel.
'Total Totum Acid Raga' (excerpt on cassette, Ex. 15), the only
original piece on the album, is greatly influenced by the sounds
of Indian classical music. 'Acid Raga' is a purely instrumental
piece featuring Henson on the sitar in a long exploratory
improvisation, with Pavid sustaining momentum on bongo drums
throughout. Interesting interplay between flute and sitar is
another feature of the piece which resembles a combination of
Indian, rock and jazz ideas. The allusion to 'acid' in the title
is also indicative of the trend towards producing music under the
influence of drugs, a trend popularised by the renowned Woodstock
event in 1969.
The multiculturalism portrayed by Abstract Truth is important