Folk /
Indo-Arabic Variations
Tip! Unique fusion of the Indian and Egyptian music cultures devised by Baligh Hamdi, the most prominent of all modern composers in the Arab-speaking world. Hamdi, who penned dozens of hit compositions for Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Warda and Sabah amongst others, also shaped the future of Arabic music in a way that's difficult to overestimate.
Directed by Hamdi, the renowned Indian sitar player Magid Khan joins the Egyptian musicians of Abdel Halim Hafez's orchestra in re-reading some of H…
Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter
WRWTFWW & MEG Museum (Geneva) are very happy to announce a new album by famed Japanese percussionist Midori Takada, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter, her very own rendition of "Nhemamusasa", a traditional work emblematic of the musical repertoire for mbira of the Shona of Zimbabwe. Recorded in a live setting and played with instruments conserved in the collections of the MEG Museum.
Liner notes include: An interview by Midori Takada A point of view by Zimbabwean scholar, musician and act…
Shirley Mastic
**100 copies** "I wrote and recorded these songs over a decade ago. Listening back, I chuckle at the fact that I may actually say the word ‘die’ or ‘death’ in every single song. Considering how metaphorically I attempted to write these lyrics, those two words very literally represent what I was dealing with. Within a four year span I lost one of my best friends to cancer and my dad to a heart attack. As a person in my 20’s that span of time felt like an eternity but in hindsight I can see now th…
Folksongs & Ballads
Folksongs and Ballads by Tia Blake & Her Folk-Group, is more than just a “lost classic”. As clear and honest as can be, Folksongs and Ballads is a magnetic record, a refuge like only Nick Drake, Nico, and a few others have been able to create. A graceful, delicately minimalist approach to classic Appalachian and British folk songs.The perfect balance between melancholy and daydream. Originally released only in France in 1971, Ici Bientôt is very pleased to present the first-ever reissue on vinyl…
Let No One Judge You: Early Recordings From Iran, 1906-1933
*2022 stock* The set is a 34-song anthology of Early Recordings From Iran painstakingly restored from 78s at Abbey Road studio in London "Ravishingly beautiful, achingly precious songs and instrumentals, ranging from two performances by the Royal Court Orchestra in 1906 — with futuristic, overlapping trumpets and exquisite clarinet improvisation — through to a hauntingly soulful Hafez setting by Moluk Zarrabi of Kashan, from 1933. There are eight selections from more than three hundred recording…
I Live In A Utopia
This sprawling collection by Belgian loner blues savant Bram Devens aka Ignatz encapsulates the mystery, murk, and melancholy of his uncanny craft at its most windswept and wayward. Originally issued via Goaty Tapes in September of 2015, this long-anticipated vinyl edition expands the saga with an additional 17 minutes of archival material. Deven’s palette remains constant throughout: feathery fingerpicking, modal loops, and intuitive six-string navigations interspersed with candlelit passages o…
De Dreit Nien
The Jericho project is fully in line with the approach of the La Nòvia collective from which it originates, a hub for like-minded musicians reinventing regional folk repertoires, marrying traditional French song with minimalism via the use of drone. Jericho is just one of many available permutations of La Nòvia members, with the line-up including Yann Gourdon, Clément Gauthier, Jacques Puech and Antoine Cognet – you could say it’s La Nòvia’s flagship, or super-group. There are no dramatic stylis…
There Up, Behind The Moon
Melody As Truth is proud to announce ‘There Up, Behind the Moon’, a collaborative album from Romanian musician Ana Stamp and Jonny Nash. For this collaboration, the pair spent over two years researching, arranging and recording Romanian folklore songs, aiming to give new context to these traditional, forgotten melodies. Throughout the album Ana’s vocals sit in delicate balance with Nash’s signature minimalist arrangements, accompanied with cimbalom, piano, double bass and guitar. ‘Bright Girl’, …
The Manson Family Sings The Songs Of Charles Manson
Recorded at the infamous Spahn Ranch in 1970, while their leader Charles Manson was facing trial for the murder of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, The Manson Family Sings is a highly disconcerting listen. Beneath the harmonic brilliance and folksy innocence of these campfire-styled recordings are the hallmarks of Manson’s twisted worldview, rendering a dystopian edge to what is otherwise compelling singalongs. Squeaky Frome, Brenda Gold, Gypsy Share and Sandra Blue all feature, with Clem Grogan fron…
Homage To Nazim Hikmet
Following the reissue of the self-titled debut by Tülay German & François Rabbath in
2021, we‘re presenting the 2nd and final part of our Tülay German reissues: "Homage to Nazım Hikmet" (1982). Once again in a duo setting with François Rabbath, Tülay German pays tribute to one of Turkey's greatest poets of the 20th century: Nazım Hikmet (1902-1963).
Mesourania/Wendy's Wedding
* Edition of 70 copies * Compiling two EP's (Mesourania (2019) and Wendy's Wedding (2016) by Seirios Savvaidis (who also plays in The Dead Ends), one of Greece's best kept secrets. Some mind expanding songs that reflect deep knowledge of traditional Greek music by way of sixties and seventies pychedelia and cosmic folk troubadours. Savvaidis's relaxed Greek vocals make you float all the way up Mount Paggaio.
Nass El Ghiwane
Nasse El ghiwane cannot be confined to the people who formed this mythical group. The practice of the ghiwane is an ancestral custom that conferred on people known for their probity and modesty the ability to describe through song and speech the daily life, problems and hindrances of their fellow men. These troubadours, from douars to douars, transmitted their knowledge through poetry, song and theatrical play. Considered revolutionary or a social phenomenon, the mythical band that American dire…
Dayspring
Released in 1983 on a miniscule run of 300-self-financed LP’s, Dennis Taylor’s ‘Dayspring’ remains a lost masterwork of transcendental instrumental guitar. An important missing link between the 60’s folkloric experimentalism of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, and the new age atmospherics mined by William Ackerman and Michael Hedges in the early 80’s. Though Taylor’s guitar playing remains crisply unadorned on these 10 tracks, his technique and his compositions stretch beyond the folk roots of the g…
Bizzarrophytes
Carl Erdmann’s Bizzarrophytes was recorded in Roswell, New Mexico, during the final years of the 70’s. A desert-fried haze of buzzing sitar raga, shimmering guitar soli, and lonesome instrumental psych. Erdmann had been galvanized several years prior by witnessing an intimate performance by Ravi Shankar at Austin’s University of Texas. Erdmann spent the next several years with a sitar in the back of his pickup truck - teaching himself the instrument between stints working on an oil field as a ge…
Matir Gaan: Songs From The Earth (LP)
* Tip! * Matir Gaan is a collaboration between young Bengali migrant, Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist, Andrea Rusconi (aka Paq). The resulting album delightfully combines the ancient folk songs of Md After's homeland with Paq's cosmic synth exotica.Mohammed After Hussain escaped Bangladesh in 2015 and arrived in Italy in 2017 after a long and dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from the violence he found in Libya. In Italy he found safety and hospitality as an asylum …
The Story Of Valerie
*2022 repress* The discovery of a cassette of Carola Baer's early 90s private home recordings was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Made as a one off mixtape of newly recorded songs, and given away to a long-since forgotten recipient, this cassette was found in 2017 at a Goodwill "bins" location in Portland, Oregon. These chaotic, by the pound thrift stores contain 1000's of unsorted items in constant flux, which are only available for the public to buy for a limited time before…
Back To Baâlbek
The Diva Faïrouz. Her real name Nouhad Haddad, she was born in the Zokak el Blat district of Beirut. The eldest of a modest Maronite family, she developed a passion for singing very early on. Her parents are too poor to afford the luxury of a radio, so she spends most of her time listening, her ear glued to the wall, to the neighbors. Nouhad quickly memorizes the songs she hears and gives a few samples at parties organized by her school. It was there that she seduced her comrades with her vocal …
In Between The Notes : A Portrait Of Pandit Pran Nath
William Farley’s 1986 documentary portrait of the Indian classical figure, who considered by many to be the godfather of drone. Featuring interviews with Terry Riley, Mariam Zazeela and La Monte Young.
Kosterläge
*2022 stock* First ever vinyl reissue of rare and sought after Swedish psychedelic / progressive / folk underground treasures from the early 1970s. From Swedish folk to epic full tilt fuzz guitar jams it’s all in here. Originally released in 1972 on the obscure Swedish Gump label with many talented musicians of the time on board. Led by Mats Glenngård on guitar and fiddle, the album shows an interesting musical transition period before he joined the legendary Kebnekajse. One time only limited pr…
Breslin
“A set of spry, pastoral Aecoustic Guitar and errant Electronic pieces that harken back to libraries by Teisco, Vittorio Marino, and the like, yet mapped in an alien manner unlike any known lanes. Unusual, and uniformly excellent.” - Keith Fullerton Whitman