In So Many Worlds : As Madagascar’s Best-Known Musical Export, Roots-Based Tarika Also Strikes Universal Chords

The leader of Tarika has heard her group’s sound likened to a laundry list of musical forms: South African pop, West African kora music, Tahitian choral singing, Peruvian and Indonesian folk music--even American country music.

Group leader Hanitra can’t vouch for the accuracy of the comparisons--because, at least until recently, she had heard very little music from outside her home of Madagascar. So when it comes to putting Tarika’s sound into words, well, “I don’t know how to describe it,” she says. “It’s very polyrhythmic, but it’s also very melodic.”

World-music fans who enjoy playing name-the-influence can take their own stab at defining Tarika when the group plays tonight at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library.

Madagascar is about 240 miles off the southeast coast of Africa, and its Malagasy people are largely of mixed African and Indonesian descent. Tarika draws from a number of regional styles, blending the intricate interplay of mostly acoustic string instruments with the harmony vocals of Hanitra and her sister Noro.

On its current album, “Bibiango,” Tarika’s music is alternately lilting and melancholy, bubbling and upbeat, and as might be expected, it has hints of both African and Indonesian roots. But while there may be similarities with other styles of music, Hanitra says they stop at the surface.

“I would say that it’s a very distinctive music,” she said in a telephone interview from London, during a European tour. “To me, the Malagasy have been isolated for so long. I still find it different from other music.”

What Tarika plays is roots-based, performed on traditional instruments, but it is a blend of regional styles consciously crafted for a wider audience. The group evolved from Tarika Sammy, which released two albums that scored successfully on world-music charts after the group made an initial international splash on the “World Out of Time” compilations put together by multi-instrumentalist David Lindley and guitarist Henry Kaiser.

Like others in the group, Hanitra (pronounced anch ) goes by a single-name moniker professionally (it’s easy to see why: her full name, Hanitrarivo Rasoanaivo, is actually on the short side by Malagasy standards). She grew up in the capital city of Antananarivo as part of a musical family, singing harmony with her parents and siblings, but her early career focus was on learning English and becoming an interpreter.

When a record producer from the English Globestyle label came seeking Malagasy musicians to record, she acted as guide, as translator and as what she calls “musician finder.” She introduced the producer to Tarika Sammy. The band’s leader ( tarika translates as “the group”) was Sammy, one of the leading players of traditional music.

In late 1991, Kaiser and Lindley arrived, and Hanitra performed similar duty as guide and translator. But when she went back to Sammy, “he was going to give up (music) because he couldn’t make a living,” she said.

Madagascar does not have a strong tradition of professional musicianship, Hanitra explained. It’s simply part of daily life, with many people able to play or sing. Under the circumstances they think, “Why pay for something they know already how to do themselves?”

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At the time of Kaiser’s visit, Hanitra and Noro had been considering an offer to do an a cappella recording but, instead, proposed joining forces with Sammy, creating the unique blend of harmony vocal and virtuoso musicianship that now characterizes Tarika.

Tarika Sammy--with Hanitra and Noro--recorded two albums together, both of which were released in the United States by Connecticut-based Xenophile records. They also toured the world, but at the end of 1993 Sammy left the group.

“It’s not very clear to me why he left,” Hanitra said. He formed a new group with members of his family, striving for a similar sound, she said, so Hanitra and Noro decided to find new musicians and go their own way as well.

Donne and Solo are multi-instrumentalists steeped in traditional Malagasy music. Ny Ony, on the other hand, hails from Madagascar’s more contemporary dance bands.

In addition to such traditional instruments as valiha and marovany (types of zither), kabosy (a small guitar with partially fretted neck) and jejy voatavo (a distant relation of the dulcimer), the band features bass, guitar and melodeon on some songs.

The resulting sound is a more propulsive variation on Malagasy roots music. “It’s not the same as you would hear if you went into a village somewhere,” Hanitra said.

“Bibiango,” the first album under the new lineup, was just released in the United States by Xenophile. Hanitra wrote many of the songs, including the title track, which tells of animals that come out of Madagascar’s dwindling rain forest to be fed by tourists, because their natural food supply is disappearing.

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Madagascar is an increasingly popular destination for wildlife tourism.

“Hey, mister hungry beast,” goes the song’s translated lyric. “You present yourself as a rare thing for these passing rich people? . . . I hate to tell you: You’ve escaped the primitive jungle, but now you’re imprisoned by the rules of the developed world.”

In writing the song, Hanitra said, “I was trying to feel their (the animals’) feelings. They have to come and submit to the outside world.” As she was writing it, she began to see the parallel in her own situation.

“I was thinking about the members of Tarika. We have to do the same thing. If we don’t, we starve,” she said. Tarika must tour and record abroad to survive, but in so doing, “we lose probably half our freedom.”

That’s not to say she feels resentment as the leader of Madagascar’s best-known musical export. Music, she feels, is the best vehicle for making the world aware of the country: “I’m proud,” she said. “I really feel like the ambassador of Madagascar sometimes.”

But she would like to perform more at home. “Back there in Madagascar, we don’t get to earn a living. There’s no proper venue. We can’t play (there) as much as we do abroad. . . . We can’t make a living there. That makes me sad.”

Hanitra is decisive in her views, both in interview and in her song lyrics, some of which are critical of her country’s government. One of her songs on the new album, “Ankoay,” tells of how Madagascar undertook a massive effort to save the last individual of an endangered bird species, while ignoring the poverty-plagued human population.

“That particular song was directed at the government, how they put so much attention on a bird and forget the people,” she said. The song is also directed at tourists, who push for rain-forest protection and ignore the plight of the island’s poor.

“They think I’m anti-environmentalist, but I’m not,” Hanitra said. “We would like to protect our environment because we like it too, but we can’t protect it if we’re poor and we don’t have anything to eat. . . .

“We feel like an endangered species, like a rare animal ourselves.”

* Tarika plays tonight at the La Sala Auditorium of the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano. 7 and 9 p.m. $3 to $5. (714) 493-1752. Hear Tarika

* To hear an excerpt from “Bibiango” call TimesLine at 808-8463 and press *5540.

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