Lao Dan (老丹) – 逐雲追夢 Going After Clouds and Dreams

Lao Dan is one of the most interesting improv artists operating in China at the moment.  This release comes from Modern Sky World Music, based in my current home, Beijing.  Going through their catalog, there is going to be more than a few releases getting featured on the blog soon Continue Reading

Various Artists – Canary Records: I’m Not Going: A Macedonian Band from Lorain, Ohio ca. 1954

Canary Records provides yet another stunning archive album, this time from the Macedonian community in Ohio.  From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Bob Nicoloff’s Macedonian band remained active for at least 20 years, playing for dances organized by the Macedonian Patriotic Organization, weddings, and restaurants. Like the two other mid-Western Macedonian Continue Reading

Mamer 马木尔 – Awlaⱪta / Afar 离

Mamer 马木尔 is perhaps my favorite underground artists operating in China today.  His work fuses Kazakh folk music with avant-garde music, bordering on experimental, even though he has a pedigree in working with record labels like Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records.  It’s rare to see an authentic musician dig into Continue Reading

The Baltic Sisters – Värav / Vārti / Vartai

Our dear friends at CPL-Music have a release I am rather excited about.  It should be available on the 31st of January, 2025, so our wait time is not so long.  You can pre-order the disc here. From the label’s press release: “The Baltic Sisters are a cross-border folk ensemble Continue Reading

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

Skúli Sverrisson & Óskar Guðjónsson – After Silence

Bassist Skúli Sverrisson has been a favorite of mine for well over 20 years.  In this reissue, he teams with tenor saxophonist Óskar Guðjónsson in a quiet, minimal, yet somehow lush release of interplay between the two masters.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “After Silence (Eftir þögn) was recorded in Continue Reading

Various Artists – Cardinals At The Window

Though there are no tracks to share with you from this release, I can say that there are 136 tracks of indie, alternative, folk and other genres coming together for Cardinals At The Window, a compilation whose purpose is to give funds to those who suffered from the horrible flooding Continue Reading