The Ramayana by Glenn Kotche

I recently came across this video of Glenn Kotche, Wilco‘s drummer, playing a piece he calls the Ramayana. One thing led to another and I wound up reading a few of his interviews. Essentially he uses a snake drum, as well as a variation of a kalimba, (an African thumb piano) to produce sounds – each of which he assigns a character from the Ramayana to. He says he was also inspired by some of the original field recordings of vocal chants from the last century.