‘Laya’ team discovers art in disaster zone

“LAYA PROJECT,” various (White Swan)

It’s a cliche that cynics can’t get their heads around, but the human spirit is amazingly resilient.

That fact is exemplified by “Laya Project,” a two-disc compilation of field music collected and enhanced by a team led by Patrick Sebag and Yotam Agam. The group ventured into the region devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami — Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and Myanmar — where more than 200,000 are estimated to have died. Sebag, Yotam, et al recorded the folk music of “average” people from the area (who presumably didn’t have much even before the disaster), and their poignant songs are uplifting.

The passionate vocals and instrumentation are tethered to (generally) discrete programming, strings and the like, but still preserved with respect to their indigenous nature. Tablas, flutes, Buddhist chants, keyboards and bass coexist peacefully with several forms of regional instruments, plentiful percussion and a rotating cast of lead vocalists.

Singer Shaheema brings preternatural soul to the traditional Maldives song “Farihi,” and Shwe Shwe Khine and Khine Zin Shwe deliver eerily moving vocals to the lushly produced traditional Myanmar song “Glorious Sun” (also offered as “Glorious Sun Remix”). Other striking voices intertwine with arrangements that are either mysteriously hypnotic of energetically otherworldly.

Meanwhile, the synthetic Western flourishes are rarely out of bounds, instead providing droning cushions that add weight to the bare field samples.

Some of the more extended, meditative cuts are a bit draining, and the catch-all closer “Laya Mantra,” clocking in at nearly 17 minutes, demands too much effort to follow it to a satisfying end. Yet overall, these indomitable singers and musicians are treated deferentially and prove themselves to be anything but ordinary.