I've never known any CD whose description began with the phrase "influenced by the music of (insert name of culture here)" to be anything other than some watered down version of the aforementioned culture. This has been the case especially with so many recordings of so called Native American music.

A dead give away, as far as I'm concerned, is the music is invariably filed under "New Age". It can be counted on to be some sort of ethereal nonsense passing itself off as spiritual or authentic even though the primary instrument used is the synthesizer that has as much to do with traditional Native music as I do.

If you're especially fortunate it might actually incorporate some Native flute music, or perhaps even a drum. But they have both been watered down so much that they retain only a shadow of their former potency. One only has to listen to recordings made during a Pow Wow of the large drum and compare them with the pabulum on sale to understand the difference.

You would think that if you were attempting to convince people of the authenticity of your appropriation of someone else's culture that you might actually use traditional Native songs. But no, on most of these discs the songs are all written by the performer and given genuine Native sounding names that reflect his or her "spiritual connection " to the values of Native Americans.

So to come across a CD like Anonymous by the group Tomahawk is like a breath of fresh air in an otherwise polluted atmosphere. They make no spurious claims about authenticity or have the audacity to write material based on another culture's stories. Guitarist Duane Denison became interested in Native material after touring reservations with Hank Williams III. He thought there had to be more to Native music than what was currently offered, so he began to do some searching.

What he found was music books dating back to the time Teddy Roosevelt was President that contained transcribed "Indian Songs". Because there were no credits for the songs they chose to call the album Anonymous to honour the memory of the unknown folk whose music was so tentatively preserved. The titles they have chosen for the songs on their album are the same titles listed for the songs that inspired their interpretations. They also throw in a "Parlour Song", "Long, Long, Weary Day" as an example of other anonymous music from the same period.