This is quite a pairing. Badieh consist of Spaniard Michel Gasco, who plays oud and rebab, pairs with Iranian musician Mohammed Miragharzadeh on tar and setar. From Badieh’s Bandcamp site: “Worlds Within Worlds is proud to announce the release of Badieh’s self-titled debut album – a collection of mystifying folk pieces from the Greater Khorasan…
Tag: Ethnic Music
Various Artists – Fly, Fly, You Hardened Arrow: Round Dance Songs of “Polish” Old Believers from Altai
The now-legendary Antonovka Records have done astounding work documenting music from Russia’s myriad of ethnic communities. This one is from the so-called “Polish” Old Believers in the Altai region. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The ancestors of the Altai “Polish” Old Believers were peasants of the Vetka-Starodub territory of the priestly Old Believers, who fled…
Various Artists – Nordic Notes – CPL-Music 2022
Our friends at CPL Music and Nordic Notes had another banner years for releases in the genre of World Music. The sampler includes tracks from the Balkans, Scandinavia and Asia among other locales, and it’s a great way to taste what the label has to offer.
Yggdrasil & Vera Kondratieva — Timint Areh
Yggdrasil are a Faroese project led by multi-instrumentalist Kristian Blak (whom I had the pleasure, many years ago, of meeting in Varna, Bulgaria) and a host of local musicians along with singer Vera Kondratieva from Siberia. You would expect to hear a melding of Scandinavian and traditional Siberian music on Timent Areh, but this also…
Vartra – Basma
Our beloved friends at CPL-Music have submitted a bizarre and completely engrossing album of ethereal tribal music from Serbia in the form of Vartra. The band was founded in 2017 by Siniša Gavrić and sisters Ivana and Aleksandra Stošić. What makes the music so interesting is that it not only draws from Serbian folk themes,…
Various Artists – Let’s Stamp: 1950s Folk Dance Recordings from Bulgarian and Yugoslavian 78rpm Discs
The ever-reliable Canary Records out of Baltimore, Maryland, have released a compilation of Balkan 78 rpm shellacs with a lot of the artists being unidentified, but whose music is most assuredly from my home away from home.
Ialoni – 50 Georgian Song (50 ქართული სიმღერა)
Ialoni are a female traditional music ensemble hailing from Georgia, and they offer on this album, as the title implies, 50 tracks of absolutely stunning renditions of folk material. A keeper.
Sak Sok Ensemble of Fershampenuaz Village – Nagaybak Songs From Chelyabinsk Region, Russia
A fascinating release from our friends at Antonovka Records. From their Bandcamp website: “Nagaybaks are an ethnic group that descends from the Christian Tatars and shares the same self-name with them — “Kreshenner”, which means “Baptized Ones”. There are about 10 thousand Nagaybaks in total, they live primarily in the Nagaybaksky district of the Chelyabinsk…
Pelkkä Poutanen – Pyhä Veri Vuotaa
Finland’s Pelkkä Poutanen provide one of 2022’s best World Music albums, combining a wild combination of Scandinavian folk, drone, throat-singing and, if you can believe it, a very light touch of tango.
Divanhana – Zavrzlama
In January, we had the pleasure of reviewing a track called Ćilim from Bosnian ethno-folk band Divanhana, and now, it’s our pleasure to bring you the rest of the album! Zavrzlama is a collection of sevdah tracks which have a darker, more minor-key quality than what I’m used to from the genre. For my ears,…