The good folks at the Russian World Music Chart have announced their top-20 of 2024, and each made for stunning listening. Due to a few health issues and the loss of my partner in this endeavor, Steven Shore, I wasn’t able to participate as fully as I would have liked Continue Reading
Ethnic Music
The Resian Folk Group – Resia Valley: String-Band Music from Eastern Alpine Italian Villages ca. 1978
The Resian Folk Group were from the Resia Valley in the Italian Alps. What sets them apart from their countrymen are their folk traditions and language, which seem to have a strong Slovene influence. Canary Records does their usual outstanding job remastering this collection. It sounds absolutely gorgeous considering the Continue Reading
The River Voices – Çorovodë, Albania | May 2017
From Remix-Culture‘s Bandcamp site: “Recorded live in May of 2017 by Hatim Belyamani and Bajram “Kafu” Kinolli in Çorovodë, Albania. We are a non-profit organization celebrating musical traditions in harmony with digital remix art. Our mission is to inspire people to reconfigure their relationships with other cultures, communities, and individuals, Continue Reading
Hossein Alizadeh (حسین علیزاده) – Classical Music From Iran – Great Masters of the Setar
I will be traveling back to the United States for about 15 days, so I will not be posting much either today or tomorrow. I leave you with a video of the magnificent setar master Hossein Alizadeh from Iran to keep your spirits up. It’s helped mine, for sure.
Various Artists – Mississippi Records: Street Musicians of Yogyakarta
Mississippi Records released a collection of field recordings covering local music from Yogyakarta, Indonesia. These were recorded between November 1976 and January 1978.
Various Artists – Antonovka Records: Made in Davlekanovo: Russian and Chuvash Songs from Bashkortostan
The brilliant folks at Antonovka Records continue to amaze and delight with their travelogues across Russia, Moldova and the Balkans. This particular recording covers an area I have ready plenty about, but have not yet passed through. From the label’s Bandcamp site for this release: “The album features Russian folk Continue Reading
Cristina Godoroja – Ciobănaș Cu Oile: Songs From Moldova and Romania
Antonovka Records, once based in Russia but now ensconced in Moldova, continues to release some of the most seminal music to ever come out of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and their reach seems to keep expanding. This album covers the work of traditional singer Cristina Godoroja, an ethnomusicologist Continue Reading
Auļi – Ķekatās
Six pipes, three drummers, a bassist and a massive wall of sound are what Latvian band Auļi offer, and this album shows the band collaborating with a score of modern musicians updating a powerful ethnic sound. According to the Bandcamp site, “this album is dedicated to the Latvian masquerade traditions Continue Reading
Yunchi Ensemble – Aleksandrovka, Milyanfan: Dungan Music from Kyrgyzstan
Yet another amazing collection has been released by Antonovka Records, now based in Moldova. This collection features a Chinese Muslim ethnic group called the Dungan who live in the passes between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and surprisingly, they don’t write in Chinese, but in Cyrillic! From Antonovka’s Bandcamp site: “Most of Continue Reading
Santeri Dobrynin, Egor Masaltsev, Olga Plekhanova – Karjalan Jouhikko: Karelian Instrumental Music
This release from our friends at Antonovka Records features three players of the jouhikko, a local stringed instrument: Santeri (Alexander) Dobrynin and Olga Plekhanova from Karelia and Russian Egor Masaltsev, who moved to the region. There are 22 tracks of charming interplay between the three and individually. All the tunes Continue Reading