Soe Sanda Tun | Unknown Burmese CD

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The Myanmar Question: How WTF do you want your music?

Nearly every song on this utterly bewitching CD begins as though someone--some very, very bad boy or girl--had catapulted it into a giant lake of melted processed cheese, where it flails about, choking and gasping for air, its oversized Margaret Keane eyes imploring you to rescue it by turning off your stereo and going out and enjoying life.

Then, perhaps 20-30 seconds into the song, Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, Paul Hindemith and Edgar Varese each takes his place at one corner of the Lake o'Cheese. Together, in unison, they kneel down, pressing their elderly chapped lips to the lake's orange bobbing surface. John and Paul gently suck the cheese toward them while Arnold and Edgar gently blow. Then, Paul begins to blow. And Arnold sucks. John blow-sucks, blow-sucks, blow-sucks. And in this way, these four cornerstones of 20th century avant-garde music cause the previously drowning song to lift and rise above the cheese, in exaggerated but nonetheless cool-looking feather steps, enchuflas, ronds and gonchos.

The moral of the story? When life catapults you into a lake of cheese, tell your thin-lipped avant-garde friends to suck it.