The piece, entitled "Postal Workers," accompanied an ethnomusicology textbook I had back as an undergraduate. It was recorded by Jim Koetting in Ghana in 1975. As a work song, "Postal Workers" is a document both of a physical task, of the action of moving an envelope from a file to a table and canceling it, and of a music-culture. The recording preserves/presents a compelling piece of music but fails to adequately convey the work, even though the two are tangled together (the work provides the impetus and the instrumentation for the music). It reminds me of the way recordings of waulking songs come off as interesting bits of call-and-response with heavy rhythm but obscure the act of waulking the cloth that dictates the very form of the music.

Have a listen!