1980s, Papua New Guinea gained political independence from a colonial hold that had lasted almost a century. It was an exciting time for a diverse group of pioneering musicians who formed a band they named "Sanguma." These Melanesian artists heard an imagined future and performed it during a socially and politically critical time for the region. They were united under one goal: to create a sound that represented the birth of a new, sovereign, and distinctly Melanesian nation; and to express their values, identities, and cosmology through their music and performance. Sanguma's experimental music sounded the complex expectations and pressures of their modern nation and helped to steer its postcolonial journey through music. In Hearing the Future, Australian ethnomusicologist Denis Crowdy documents and analyzes the music and activities of the Sanguma band, arguing that their music was a vital form of cultural expression in sync with sociopolitical change then taking place in PNG. Drawing from rock, jazz, and nascent "world music" influences, Sanguma reached audiences far from their home nation, introducing the world to modern music, Melanesia-style, with its fusion of old and new, local and global. Performances ranged from ensembles of Melanesian log drums (garamuts) to extended songs and improvisations involving electric guitars, synthesizers, saxophone, trumpet, bamboo percussion, panpipes, and kuakumba flutes. The band sang in a variety of local vernacular languages, as well as in Tok Pisin and English. To further emphasize their ancestral style, the musicians wore decorative headdresses and body decoration from all around the nation, along with distinctive pants featuring indigenous designs." Members External links Article about Buruka Tau from the Papua New Guinea Post Courier Papua New Guinea Music History http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9540-9780824851569.aspx 2016 "Hearing the Future: The Music and Magic of the Sanguma Band," Author: Crowdy, Denis; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYtbPE1Y5Do This live radio interview with the members of Sanguma Band was recorded from a National Broadcasting Corporation of Papua New Guinea Radio Program "University on Air" on Friday 18 November 1977 by Ian Ross. This was a promotion for the Band member's final UPNG graduation concert the following Friday 25 November 1977. World music groups Papua New Guinean music