Folk & Traditional / All styles

2025 stock How can we explain the power of music? How can songs delivered in a language which we don't understand move us so? This collection contains the very best songs from Hongthong Dao-udon, one of the great Thai singers of the "third generation" of Molam singers, one of the artists who succeeded in fusing Molam with Luk Thung, thus triggering a new generation of singers; in fact she was the first to sing both genres from the beginning of her career, considering herself to be situated happi…

2025 stock Imagine being a punk rocker before there were any others, or a hippie whose message of peace was infused with a sardonic whimsy. That’s what it must have been like to be Pip Proud, in Sydney in the late 1960s, railing against the media and its hypocrisies, making a music that cut through all lies. — David Nichols Pip Proud, sui generis, could be considered an Australian outsider, with his untutored and uninhibited singing style, his primal guitar playing, his resolutely personal visio…

While their name may conjure images of avian origami, rolled cannabis, or cut-up 10th letters, Paper Jays are an instrumental music body from Rhode Island that became fully formed during the session for their forthcoming eponymous release on ESP-disk. Prior, Jesse Cohen and Justin Hubbard’s guitar duo (a trio, only if counting the unmanned feedback drone of a hollow-bodied Gibson) had been contentedly performing and apartment taping for a solid five years. But after witnessing drummer and percus…

Dervish-like guitar spirals by Ghent-based musician Benoît Monsieurs, following two excellent releases on Kraak under his Venediktos Tempelboom moniker. Ecstatic music that takes cue from psychedelism, modern and ancient - from Hildegard von Bingen to Vincent le Masne et Bertrand Porquet. Splendid stuff. Unlike France, Belgian underground scenes never ceased to be consistent since the early 1970's and onwards, constituting vast, sprawling networks, that reaches present days via very active label…

Subtitled: Belaluan, Pangkung, Busungbiu. World Arbiter presents historic gamelan recordings made in 1928 as part of a collection of the first and only commercially-released recordings of music made in Bali prior to World War II, the first ever to document pre-War genres. The compositions heard on volume 1 are untraditional, avant-garde experiments that later evolved into familiar forms, new music captured close to the time of its inception. After five years of research and field work, Ed…

** 2025 stock. ** Ancient Court Raga Traditions: The Pathak Gharana unveils the legacy of Ashok Pathak, torchbearer of a centuries-old musical lineage rooted in expressive sitar and surbahar artistry. The album channels the introspective eloquence and technical invention unique to Pathak Gharana, honoring classical forms while revealing a spirit of fresh musical interpretation through deep alap, intricate meend, and rare court compositions.

Vol. II in a five-disc series of 1928 Balinese recordings features Balinese vocal music, the first release of these recordings since they were first pressed to 78 rpm discs in 1929, the only commercially released recordings of music made in Bali before World War II. Originally recorded by a team from the German labels Odeon and Beka on a 1928-29 expedition to Bali and intended for a Balinese public that lacked any discs of its own music, many of these records have been reduced to single r…

Vol. III of the complete 1928 Balinese recordings, the first republication since 1928 of lost shellac recordings, opens with the only known recordings of a lost gamelan. Heard in three tracks, Gamelan Semar Pagulingan, an ensemble known as "Gamelan of Love in the Bedchamber," played instruments that no longer exist, originally performed just outside the private residence of a raja during meals, times of leisure, and when the raja was otherwise engaged in pleasure with one of his wives. The…

Vol. IV of the Bali 1928 recordings includes kebyar with sung poetry, gambuh dance-drama, ancient ritual angklung, and solo flute. All lyrics receive English translations in the liner notes, with an extensive text by Edward Herbst included as a PDF (accessed by computer) and hosted online by World Arbiter. Performances by Gamelan Gong Kebyar Belaluan, Denpasar; Gambuh of Sésétan, Denpasar; Gamelan Angklung Kléntangan of Sidan, Gianyar; Gamelan Angklung of Pemogan, Denpasar; Gamelan Angklung o…

Vol. V of the Bali 1928 recordings contains various emergent theatrical dance and dance-opera forms with translations of the dramas' texts. We hear the first recordings of women participating in dance dramas, making this disc a major cultural repatriation of primary Balinese art forms that had been lost for nearly a century. An extensive essay is included as a PDF (accessed by computer) with links to 1930s silent films and a photo library are hosted online by World Arbiter. Some of these …

A compilation from all five of World Arbiter's volumes of the complete Balinese recordings from 1928, newly remastered in 2015 and released for the first time since the days of 78-RPM shellac. Performances of gamelan gong kebyar, semar pagulingan, gender wayang, palégongan, gambangam pajogédan, gambuh, angklung, suling, tembang, kidung, kakawin, arja geguntangan, janger, cepung, unaccompanied vocals, and topeng. When composer Colin McPhee heard some 78s in New York, brought over by anthropologis…

Transcendental acoustic guitar mysticism from the VDSQ shaman of Western MA. Anthony Pasquarosa is an artist and musician whose need to create is like a never ending search. He shouts at the audience in HC/Punk bands, pays tribute to early eighties electro punk and late sixties psych, plays old time music and is an excellent player of all stringed instruments.

Masque Femine should be regarded as a total work - much like a film, a ballet, a building, or, an altarpiece - rather than as an album of individual songs. And, its fundamental subject should not be understood to be romantic love. Christina Carter was born in the bayou city of Houston, Texas in November of 1968, and co-founded the group Charalambides there in December of 1991. Ever since then, she has deeply mined her own vein of sound-as-music with voice, guitar (both electric and acousti…

On Transgression!!!, Donald Miller, guitar icon known for destroying worlds in the great Borbetomagus, takes the listener on an unexpected journey through the 12-string acoustic guitar. Utilizing his occult kinetic picking style, Miller reveals undiscovered universes with nothing but a slide and a spell to guide you. Playing a blues that bristles against structure while transmitting ineffable mastery, Transgression!!! is a modern guitar album like no other. Recorded in his current city, New Orle…

"Back in '94 there was little sense that a new scene was on the horizon, but there was. Indeed, things were beginning to break out all over. All they needed was a little push. In Quest of Tense was released on CD in '94 (FE 038) and was just what a lot of people needed, even if they didn't know it yet, or didn't quite realize what it was when they heard it. Dredd Foole(aka Dan Ireton) had been roving through the Boston music underground since the early '80s, with a series of bands using the name…

* US Import from Feeding Tube * Myriam Gendron Ma Délire - Songs of Love Lost & Found  It has been a while since the release Myriam's acclaimed 2014 debut album, Not So Deep As a Well. The intervening years have brought a smattering of live performances, a bouquet of children, Trump's Pandemic, and much more. For someone who likes to read and ponder as much as Ms. Gendron does, there has been plenty to mull over. Different concepts for a new album were broached, but the seed of Ma Delire was pla…

2025 stock Second VHF solo LP from the Pelt/Black Twigs mainstay, following 2022’s acclaimed “Evening Measures.” “April is Passing” builds on the striking solo Hardanger-style fiddle performances on the previous LP to take the music even further out, with deep drones and extended techniques defining a vocabulary that is Americana-adjacent, but a unique and special sound that Mike Gangloff is pursuing almost alone. Joined on selected tracks by Cara Gangloff’s Sruti and Kaily Shenker’s sonorous Ce…

"Vinylization of a tour CDR, Josephine recorded at home around the time of A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (2006). Accompanying herself on guitar and piano, with some drum and vocal help from Brian Goodman, the album is a glorious once-lost-now-found piece of the fascinating musical puzzle that is the music of Josephine Foster. While Foster's music is clearly consonant with the current trends in avant-völk music (here, especially, on her wild readings from the Tibetan Book of Dzyan), another large po…

Four tracks of instrumental acoustic guitar from the master songwriter. Starting out in London as a devotee of various blues and old time country musicians (Skip James, Dock Boggs, Robert Wilkins, etc) Dan Melchior soon found that slavish impersonation wasn’t the right route for him. After a period of mainly re interpreting traditional material, Melchior found a way to express his own concerns and ideas lyrically, and set about melding them to a backdrop of over driven, buzzsaw rock, with variou…

End of the Night was conceived based around a simple, yet extremely emotionally resonant concept. Late one evening the musician and myself were listening to records at home. After many hours it got to the point where everything became completely still, the silence permeating the walls, reverberating. We agreed to listen to one more record, but what would it be? What music could answer that existential quandary of the perfect last record of the night at home? I instantly asked him to make me the …

Deben Bhattacharya (1921-2001) was a field recordist, poet, filmmaker, musicologist, and amateur ethnomusicologist, based in Calcutta and Paris. Highly influential, it would not be too bold a stretch to say that his work shaped how we listen to the world: he produced a vast number of LPs, CDs, videos, and radio shows of traditional music from India, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe from 1953 until his death in 2001. Never before published, Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music on the Desert …

Music from Ladakh recorded during the making of the film The Song Collector (2014) by director Erik Koto, with additional material recorded by Bill Kite in 1992. "Situated high in the Western Himalaya, Ladakh is one of the great cultural crossroads of Asia. For centuries, it sat at the hub of ancient trade routes that connected the Silk Road to India, Tibet, and Kashmir. Each year, once the winter snows had melted from the high passes surrounding Ladakh, its markets would buzz with merchants fro…

Tip! Mystic choral beauty drifting far into the outer cosmos, this other worldly ensemble creates a contemporary avant-garde vocal fusion combined with strange instrumental accompaniment. The Hani are linguistically derived from the Yi branch of the Tibeto-Burmese and number a million and a half in the southern part of Yunnan province in China above Laos (Phongsaly) and Vietnam (Dien Bien) where smaller Hani communities also live. As with many other ethnic groups of the area, an original traditi…

This is Sublime Frequencies' second volume of transcendent musical field recordings from central and southern Madagascar, produced by Charles Brooks. Like the grand beauty and wonder of its flora and fauna, Madagascar's music is completely unique. Whether the tempos are fast with polyrhythmic precision or slow in the form of a Kabosy ballad, once one gets familiar with its sound, it can never be mistaken again. Charles Brooks has been traveling to Madagascar and living with these spectacular art…

2025 stockJust over a decade ago, Japanese indie-pop duo Tenniscoats recorded »Papa's Ear« (2012) and »Tan-Tan Therapy« (2007), two albums made with musical and production help from Swedish post-rock/folk trio Tape. Originally released on Häpna, they are beautiful documents of the exploratory music made by a close-knit collective of musicians, fully at ease with each other, playing songs written by Tenniscoats and arranging them in gentle and generous ways. Released during a particularly product…

H&F Recordings’ album Friends, sometimes known as Fragile, is a rediscovered gem of early 1970s British psych-folk. Crafted by Peter Howell and John Ferdinando, this collaborative project—originally issued as a private press—displays gentle harmonies, intricate acoustic textures, and a disarmingly intimate approach, now remastered for fresh ears after decades of semi-mythical obscurity.​

The genealogy of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's aquatic, immersive, multisensory installation, developed in over twenty versions over thirty years. Clinamen is published on the occasion of the installation of a monumental version of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's work in the Rotonde of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection during Summer 2025. "These blue islets, their surface dotted with floating white porcelaine emispheres, like the atoms of an endlessly renewed musical form - drifting, collidi…

Tip! Tip! Tip! "This is how deep dive historical explorations of music you might have missed should be done: rich in detail and captivating. This is for people who love music by people who love music. Perfectly concepted and exquisitely delivered.” - Henry RollinsTreasures Untold : A Modern 78 RPM Reader is a beautiful 10 x 10" 155 page hardcover book with CD, ltd ed of 1000, numbered foil stamp. The CD contains ten covers of 78-era songs by artists such as Luther Dickinson, Eden & John's East R…

Horizoning, the sole album from Stefan Gnys, emerges as a deeply atmospheric and personal artifact of 1969, where raw, introspective songwriting meets lo-fi folk production. Long considered a Hamilton cult rarity, the reissue preserves Gnys’s solitary voice and sensitive arrangements—acoustic guitar, subdued backing, and confessional lyrics—making each note resonate with fragile honesty.​

Language At An Angle by Sam Wenc is a reflective exploration into the interface of sound, text, and performance, redefining the emotional and spatial possibilities of instrumentation. Renowned for upending genre expectations, Wenc crafts ambient textures and avant-folk motifs that subtly coalesce, inviting listeners into a contemplative sonic environment. The album distinguishes itself by merging Americana atmospheres with experimental nuance, embodying a distinctive voice within contemporary mi…

With five albums released, several tours around Spain, Europe, Uruguay and the United States in which he has paired among others with Geoff Farina (Karate) or Glenn Jones and even performed at the legendary John Fahey tribute festival in Takoma Park, Maryland (The Thousand Incarnations of the Rose), the passing of time has consolidated Isasa's musical career to the point of winning the praise of such exquisite critics as Byron Coley or Wire magazine, the blessing of masters of the new guitar suc…

**500 copies** "Feeding Tube is pleased to be able to offer the first domestic release, helmed by the superb British guitarist, Chris Joynes. For this album, Joynes has assembled a polyglot ensemble comprised of folks from Dead Rat Orchestra (a splendidly bizarre experimental völk outfit), guitarist Nick Jonah Davids (with whom Joynes recently did a split LP of solo electric guitar improvs) and Cam Deas, who records both as a sound artist and as an acoustic guitarist.The music they have created …

Every song on this album taps into raw, rich veins of sound that are simultaneously dense but easy to enjoy; vintage and modern; new yet timeless. The album kicks off with a monster track entitled "Stratton-Eustis" - one of those complex yet flowing tunes that makes you think overdubs were involved or the player has grown an extra set of limbs. Then there's "Kenduskeag,” a raga-esque group recording in an abandoned New England Conservatory building with Ethan WL and the long standing anonymous d…

*CD edition* 'The Nanai people have their songs and instruments. Some of them were used by composer Alexander Lavrov and singer Kola Beldy who is of Nanian descent in their music on this, Kola Beldy’s fourth album. Just as all his records from the 1980s, this is extremely rare and originals in good shape can cost a small fortune. Just in case they ever turn up somewhere outside the vast Russian country. Now for the very outstanding music that as mentiond above is based on centuries old folk tune…

A Happy Return’s Hamewith distills a quietly radiant folk minimalism that feels both homespun and transcendent. Built from acoustic sketches, tape hiss, and pastoral fragments, the record reflects on belonging, landscape, and impermanence—its short pieces flickering like field recordings of emotion, half-remembered but deeply intimate.​

Muluken Mellesse with the Dahlak Band is a classic Ethiopian album, originally released in 1976 and now reissued as part of the prestigious Ethiopiques series. The recording captures Muluken at the height of his powers, delivering emotionally charged vocals over the Dahlak Band’s vibrant blend of afrobeat, funk, and Ethio-jazz. This set embodies the golden era of Ethiopian popular music, marked by complex horn arrangements, subtle groove, and enduring melodies.

Irish based Syrian/Kurdish artist Mohammad Syfkhan’s debut album ‘I Am Kurdish’ shows his brand of ecstatic music which takes elements from Middle Eastern and North African music to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness.

*Fully licensed, ltd to 500 copies, 180 gr. Comprised  of a precious  inlay card featuring an exclusive essai by Emma Tricca.* “This is an album that takes you on a supernatural journey to the discovery of ancient sounds that move our souls in the deepest of manners”. Veronique Chalot was born in Normandy in the north of France, but it was in Paris that she first became interested in traditional French folk music. In 1974 she landed in Rome where she soon earned a small, but dedicated following.…

Drop a needle on Psyché's debut double-sider and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from …

2025 stock Vinyl LP repressing of this iconic album. The Velvet Underground was the third album by Lou Reed and his cohorts. It was their first record to feature Doug Yule, John Cale's replacement. The album's sound - consisting largely of ballads and straight-forward rock songs - marked a notable shift in style from the group's previous recordings.