Small Path Music (with Laurent Jeanneau)

Small Path Music was shot on location in Southeast Asia in 2010 with Laurent Jeanneau on his relentless quest to capture audio recordings of vanishing indigenous music from ethnic groups of this vast region. The documentary (shot over a period of eight months) takes US travelling with Laurent in the field through remote northern Laos and Yunnan Province of Southwest China and invites US into the world of the folk artists he explores. From shamanic rituals to love songs, historical epics to lamentations, his microphones document what he discovers there. Laurent tells US of the state he finds these artists in today, how this music speaks to him, and we learn what drives the urgency of his work. As perhaps the most committed and accomplished procurer of rare and threatened music from this part of the world, Laurent recounts experiences from a decade of recording in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and China, and we gauge his perspective on the musical traditions of the area. We see how he relates to them and how his work has led his life in new directions. Along this journey he met his wife, Tanding and together they established a recording label (Kink Gong) to release their field recordings.