Princess Nicotine

"Folk & Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) Volume 1"

Strongly reminiscent of Indian "Filmee" music, with lots of high, soulful female vocals.
Differences: a very high, reedy instrument like a "snake charmer" horn; angular start-stop rhythms and weaving melodies. Other prominent instruments are very fast piano (sounding almost like harp glissendos), a plucked string instrument like a lute, some sort of hand drums (almost like bongos), flute, and more. Warning: Some tracks have big chunks of spoken dialog (2, 10, 4-operatic). Originally released on cassette in 1994.

Picks:
(6) 2:40 "Jasmine Bush of Gold" -- Intro: slow flute; main part: slow male vocals with light lute (?) accompaniment, a folky sound; close: flute & lute.

(8) 4:28 "Good Time" -- Distant female vox wails over slow weaving melody.

(11) 6:11 "Lover of the Winter and Snow" -- *bling* *blang* *bling*, harp-like piano lead, slow female vox, like early hollywood torch-singing.

(12) 3:01 "My Darling's Love Arrow" -- fast rhythm, lead is like "beat-the-clock", high reed-licks, filled-in orchestral sound, slows a little and female vox comes in.

Also good:
(1) 6:40 "Burmese Golden Drum" -- very dramatic, lead: flourishes of bongos (?), then high shreiking reedy licks, then the female vox comes in.

(5) 1:10 "The Tune of the First Entertainment" -- Forceful drums, high reedy thing, female shouts.

(7) 2:42 "Someday He Will Return" -- Lush, produced sound, like electric guitar wail, a silly movie music flourish, then some great mid-tempo female vox.

(9) 1:12 "Lover of Smiling Girls" -- Obnoxious kick from "snakecharmer", female vox, melody like a music box, rhythm weaves, almost halts, then resumes.