'Hanoi Masters' is the first release in the brand new Hidden Musics series set up by Glitterbeat Records to give some lesser known music traditions the attention they deserve. For this album producer Ian Brennan travelled to Vietnam where he went in search of the traditional music of the pre-Vietnam War era. This led to a number of encounters with musicians, most of whom were war veterans who hadn't played or sung music for decades and still knew how to play almost forgotten instruments like the k'ni (fiddle like instrument, part of the chordophone family of instruments, which use the musician's mouth as a resonator, used by the Jarai people in Vietnam's Central Highlands region) or dan tranh (Vietnamese zither, related to the Chinese guzheng, the Japanese koto, the Mongolian yatga and the Korean kayagum). Vietnamese music tradition is somewhat reminiscent of its Chinese and Mongolian counterparts and is therefore not always palatable to western ears, but for those with a slightly adventurous musical taste, 'Hanoi Masters: War Is A Wound, Peace Is A Scar' offers a wonderful voyage of discovery.