Urumi melam

Urumi melam is the devotional drumming ensemble of the Tamil Hindu diaspora in Malaysia and Singapore, built around the urumi, an hourglass-shaped double-headed drum whose friction-played heads produce a piercing, whirring roar. Troupes add thavil, pambai and cymbals and play at driving, escalating intensity for temple festivals, for the kavadi processions of Thaipusam, and for deities such as Murugan and Muneeswaran. Carried to Malaya by Tamil plantation labourers and reshaped by diaspora youth since the 1980s, it is a music of procession and trance, not of the concert stage or the recording studio.