Folk & Traditional / All styles

Astroturf Noise exists at the intersection of free improvisation, effects-heavy noise music, and American roots music.

"With Into Closed Air, Francis Plagne returns to the songcraft that’s been the bedrock of his music since his debut, 2006’s Idle Bones. Since then, Plagne’s music has see-sawed between a particular, parsed kind of art song and explorations of home-made musique concrete - though to see these as distinct practices understates Plagne’s capacity to layer and fuse these two tranches of his music making. This capacity has reached its deepest articulation yet on Into Closed Air. For those who’ve been f…

Temporary super offer! A singer-songwriter who wrote for the Turtles, Judee Sill -- in her early 1970s heyday -- was compared to Asylum label contemporaries like Joni Mitchell, though her music had stronger spiritual overtones. This nearly forgotten performance reveals a true talent that deserved so much more during her short lifetime. Judee Sill grew up in a very troubled home and came through it with some truly great music to tell so many stories that many of the more sentient listeners will a…

Big Tip! Our obsession with underground Greek music continues with 10 ultra-rare recordings of heartbreak and vice from rembetiko legend Giorgos Katsaros. Katsaros, who by some accounts lived to be over 100 years old, carried the old songs of Greece to the Diaspora in the United States, bridging centuries of music in one storied lifetime. Born in 1901 on the Greek island of Amorgos, Katsaros’ was enchanted with the songs he picked up as a kid in the streets of Piraeus and Athens. Encouraged by h…

Enchanting and sunny 1969 psych folk by San Francisco teenage sisters Wendy & Bonnie Flower. A cult album that would later inspire bands like Stereolab, with dreamy vocal harmonies as the main attraction, laced with Brazilian splashes and soft-rock strains. Pure timeless psychedelic pop perfection, awash in serenity and haunting reverie floating in the ether above airy soundscapes that convey a sophistication that belies the artists' tender age: 15 and 18. Alongside them are top-notch musicians …

Following on from the stunning recording of her 1992 performance at the Berlin Parampara Festival, Black Truffle continues its documentation of the work of Berlin-based Italian singer Amelia Cuni, one of the great contemporary exponents of dhrupad, the oldest surviving style of North Indian classical vocal music. Beautifully recorded in concert at Vishweshwarayya Hall, Mumbai. 04.02.1996 presents expansive performances of three ragas stretching across four sides and almost one and a half hours o…

"Well into the third decade of their existence as a musical juggernaut, a new (or at least semi-new) quartet iteration of Nashville's most aggressively shambolic band, The Cherry Blossoms, has recorded this dandy taster of a new LP. And Feeding Tube is tickled pink to bring it to you. Surreal ruralists of the highest order, this version of the Blossoms includes long-time collaborator, Josephine Foster, as a card-carrying member. Josephine has been colluding with the Blossoms for many years, and …

It's Sandy Denny is a compilation album, issued in 1970. It consists of songs Sandy Denny recorded for Saga Records in 1967, and which were initially released on two separate albums: “Alex Campbell and his Friends” and “Sandy and Johnny”.

The making of Congo Funk!, our long-awaited journey to the musical heart of the African continent, took the Analog Africa Team on two journeys to Kinshasa and one to Brazzaville. Selected meticulously from around 2000 songs and boiled down to 14, this compilation aims to showcase the many facets of the funky, hypnotic and schizophrenic tunes emanating from the two Congolese capitals nestled on the banks of the Congo River. On its south shore, the city of Kinshasa – capital of Democratic Republic…

The folk arts of Japan, including music, are an ever-evolving wonderland. Riyo Mountains, a Tokyo-based folk song research/DJ duo, is actively documenting the folk music of various regions in Japan; here they present the fifth in their series of musical documents on EM Records. This particular release focuses on the thunderous drums and powerful vocal phrases of the singular Nanyatoyara dance and song, featured at summer festivals in the northern prefectures of Iwate and Aomori, places with long…

CD reissue of the instantly sold-out Volume 3 of the now-legendary Guitars From Agadez series. Group Inerane's sophomore LP is the latest missive from the now-sound of Niger's Tuareg guitar scene. Led by guitar hero Bibi Ahmed, this new incarnation introduces another legend on second guitar, one Koudede Maman. Koudede is considered to be a cornerstone of the second wave of the Tuareg guitar lineage, while Tinariwen and Abdulla Oumbadougo are the godfathers of the scene and Group Inerane and Bo…

CD version. A vibrant soundtrack to the Cockney Jewish experience, when the swinging hot dance bands were still all the rage, and the Yiddish language was spoken on the streets of Whitechapel. Feast on long forgotten 78 rpm discs that have only recently been unearthed, starring a host of recording artists united for the first time. Hear the legendary dance band figures of the era like Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra, and Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band, to the relatively unknown Jewish special…

"Hailing from Belém do Para in the north of the country, Ary Lobo was ready to launch his campaign on the south of the country and set out for Rio de Janeiro in October of 1955. There he encountered the usual southern biases against singers from the North and it was only after meeting Gadé, a respected pianist, that he was able to secure an audition at Rádio Mauá. But the opportunity nearly turned into a disaster as he arrived to that session in such a frail state that he couldn't perform. Insuf…

"If American primitive guitar begins with John Fahey and the Takoma School, then the actual origins of this sound are found within this collection of fourteen classic solo guitar performances. Recorded between 1923 and 1930, this set is the 'Rosetta Stone' of style and repertoire tapped into deeply by Fahey, Basho, and Rose, among many others. Sam McGee, Riley Puckett, Bayless Rose, Sylvester Weaver, Lemuel Turner, Frank Hutchinson, and Davey Miller are the rural artists included in this …

A collection of spiritual and gospel songs performed in informal non-church settings between 1965 and 1973. Most are guitar-accompanied and performed by active or former blues artists. "Most records of black religious music contain some form of gospel singing or congregational singing recorded at a church service. This album, though, tries to present a broader range of performance styles and contexts with the hope of showing the important role that religious music plays in the Southern black com…

* 2022 stock. Edition of 300* Kleine was released in 2002 on tape only. Though it was recorded over the course of five years, this is probably their most coherent output – the record starts with mostly acoustic parts, mixed with more psychedelic parts. Towards the end, the more direct songs merge perfectly with the tape and drone experiments. On this record, Karin and Jeffrey get support from an impressive list of guest musicians: Alastair Galbraith on violin, B’Eirth (In Gowan Ring, Birch Book)…

Like many Birch Book/In Gowan Ring fans, we have been waiting for new releases from B'ee. So today, IFP is happy to announce the imminent release of a live recording, which has been in the works for over 10 years. The concert was recorded thirteen years ago, in August 2011, when IFP and friends invited our beloved B'ee to visit us in Siberia, where we were based at that far time. “Live in Siberia” is a 70-minute immersion in the friendly atmosphere of a small chamber hall and enjoyment of those …

Back in 1971, Coming From Reality was Rodriguez’s last gasp, the follow-up to Cold Fact and the final album he was allowed to record for the Sussex label. Unearthed, once again, by Light In The Attic Records, it’s another treat for fans new and old, designed – at the time – as Rodriguez’s vision of a perfect pop album. Coming From Reality found Rodriguez decamping from Detroit to London’s Lansdowne Studios, where the album was recorded with some of the UK’s top talent including Chris Spedding …

While the "acoustic based project[ions]" of Six Organs of Admittance have been pigeonholed by some as a chance-operated celestial jam unit, the group has always been about songs, and nowhere is this more apparent than on their fourth full length album, an eight-song cycle that mixes the strengths of Ben Chasny's acoustic and electric guitar with his knack for placing this on top of disparate and subtle atmospheric backgrounds. The live favorite (and rare single) "Somewhere Between" has been redo…

Limited LP, Deluxe 180-gram reissue including original artwork & credits.. The second album by folk artist Tim Hardin, released in 1967, Tim Hardin 2 contains his most popular and much-covered composition “If I Were a Carpenter,” most notably recorded by Bobby Darin, whose version peaked at #8 in the US and #9 in the UK in 1966. While not as prolific as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, or Neil Young, the prototypical folk-rocker Tim Hardin remains one of the greatest singer/songwriters, as much for his ma…

She is beautiful. And in a world where so much can easily be possessed on a whim or for a promise, she is not comparable. She has a clear, pure ring, a trueness, like an arrow that has hit an inner mark and can’t be wedged loose. Her voice and her manner, that stretch farther into the past than perhaps she realizes, may set the new style: an existential pop style that is as earthy as Mary Travers (Peter, Paul & Mary) yet more elegant, more isolated. Her name is Nico. I don’t know where she was b…

Double CD version. Includes color insert. Sub Rosa present a reissue of volume one (Mindanoo Mistiru) and two (Gold From Wax) of Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music, both originally released as two distinct LPs on Lyrichord in 1972. Mindanoo Mistiru and Gold From Wax were recorded by Ragnar Johnson. Ethiopia contains many diverse peoples and many styles of music. It was still an empire in July and August of 1971 when these recordings were made. Over 70 languages and 200 dialects are spoken in Ethio…

In the early 80s, an anthropologist left his recording equipment and tapes behind in a remote Wakuénai (Curripaco) village along the Upper Río Negro in Venezuela. When he returned almost a year later, he discovered that the village headman and his sons had used the equipment to record 12 hours of tape documenting a bewildering array of local narrative and musical genres – sacred chants, place-names, spirit languages, and, as featured here, the astonishing and mesmerizing sounds of trumpet and fl…

Raw, deep and spiritual Gnawa music from Morocco to carry you through the night... Recorded in a single late night session in a house in Casablanca, using a Tascam field recorder and 2 microphones, Dead of Night is the incredible new solo album from Maalem Houssam Guinia, the son of Maalem Mahmoud Guinia, and one of Morocco's most exciting young Gnawa masters. The album was recorded live on the night of 3rd January 2022 in a relaxed session that lasted into the early hours of the next morning, a…

The successful Annie Playlist series, always a best seller at concerts, now in its third installment, was conceived by Greg Lake when, starting in 2012, he discovered the talent of Annie Barbazza and to whom he dedicated himself. A sort of holiday task that began with Lake "commissioning" Annie to record a certain song, chosen by himself - playing all the instruments - and then sending it to her, subjecting it to his famous very severe judgments and, subsequently, to his fatherly teachings and a…

Moinuddin and Aminuddin Dagar in a Berlin studio in 1964, during their first European tour: two side-long dhrupad ragas, Malkauns and Jaijaivanti, set aside because the tape ran out.

The new album by Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński is named after the grass snake Žaltys, a revered household spirit in Lithuanian folklore, and explores themes of Eastern European mythology and nature. As a conduit of cultural exchange, "Žaltys" connects with Rogińsk’s previous work, most recently his critically acclaimed 2023 album "Talàn". "Žaltys" is deeply rooted in the rolling hills of the Suwałki region, in the northeast of Poland, where Rogiński spent childhood vacations and became intri…

NTS presents European Primitive Guitar, a compilation of instrumental guitar compositions, mapping out European analogues of the American Primitive Guitar movement, spearheaded by John Fahey in the 1950s. European Primitive Guitar spans works directly influenced by and responding to Fahey’s approach to composition, alongside works by artists that arrived at similar conclusions independently. The music is, at once, both starkly traditional and contemporary. This is no more evident than with the …

Seminal dub album produced by Winston Edwards. In 1974 Edwards left Jamaica to reside in the UK and through his strong connections with such reggae luminaries as Joe Gibbs, Lee Perry and King Tubby began to travel back and forth between London and Kingston (JA) to bring back recordings to issue on his Fay Music label here in the UK. In 1974 he released this controversial, seminal dub set, shunned by some at the time due to the spurious marketing device employed. The whole album appears in fact t…

Originally released in 1975, King Tubby And The Aggrovators ‘Shalom Dub’ stands as one of the earliest and most cherished dub albums in existence. King Tubby, the studio mastermind, works with a a killer set of riddims from Bunny Lee’s archive and turns out a masterpiece of manipulated FX. Eighteen tracks deep including reworked classics from Cornell Campbell, Derrick Morgan, Johnny Clarke, Linval Thompson and more.

Compilation of revolutionary Omani songs from the time of the Marxist-Leninist Dhofar Liberation Front seeking to overthrow the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman and Establish an independent state in Dhofar, free from the rule of the Omani Sultan Said bin Taimur. The rebels also held the broader goals of Arab nationalism which included ending British influence in the Persian Gulf region. The Dofar War lasted from 1965 – 1976 ultimately ending with the defeat of the PFLO. These songs celebrate the bra…

”Nowhere is the richness of Balinese art more evident than in the glitteringly brilliant music and dance of gamelan gong kebjar, which uses a 25-piece orchestra of xylophone-like bronze-keyed instruments, tuned gongs, cymbals, drums, and flutes. This style is relatively new. The earlier musical style known as gamelan gong was stately in pace. Gamelan means orchestra; gong refers to the large gong used in the orchestra. But when the kebjar style came into existence, this traditional form changedr…

"She has made one of the strongest records that has come from a Norwegian vocalist in several years." - Jan Granlie, salt-peanuts

North London’s midnight man tumbles out his treehouse to deliver twelve potions of minor healing in “Iron Day”, his questing, soul-salvaging songbook. Brimming with majesty and maraud in equal parts, Genghis Cohn synthesises trad. English folk and woe with surrealist dream sequences on this debut long-player. A romance of two hedgehogs, devotional bone temples, broken shadows and sausage kings, GC conjures a grand slab of folk music that, in a warmly recognisable form, challenges its ancient rew…

A peak album for Joni Mitchell and genuinely one of the greatest singer-singwriter albums of the '70s, of not ever, all the greater for the intimacy of the songs and beauty of her voice! Perfect isn't a word you want to throw around too often, but Joni Mitchell's Blue might be one of the rare perfect albums. They way personal storytelling soars as relatable poetry, the sparest acoustic backing feels a whole buzzing environment for her voice to soar over. It deserves every bit of praise it's gott…

Ladies Of The Canyon was originally recorded between 1969 and 1970, and serves as a transition from her earlier folk inspired release to the more sophisticated albums Joni Mitchell would go on to release. Many of the songs feature lengthy instrumental passages, something would become fully realized on albums like Court And Spark. The flute and saxophone that appear on "For Free" and "Conversation" give a taste of the influence of jazz over many of Mitchell's subsequent recordings. The singer cov…

2024 Stock. Sensitive sitar from one of the instrument's leading younger exponents, specializing in the vocal-derived gayaki style. Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee is an Indian classical sitar and surbahar maestro of the Imdadkhani gharana (school), recognizable by his intricate vocalic playing complemented by spectacular high speed playing. Bageshri and Des are two ragas that are extremely difficult to play, yet Pt. Budhadityaji has treated both of these ragas with the utmost respect. An outstandin…

Peter Hope-Evans was a member of Medicine Head, a British 70s blues band championed by John Peel and signed to his legendary Dandelion label.

Tara Nome Doyle's latest EP "Agape" marks her return to the music scene after a two-year hiatus following the success of her acclaimed sophomore album "Værmin" (Modern Recordings, BMG, 2022). latest EP "Agape" marks her return to the music scene after a two-year hiatus following the success of her acclaimed sophomore album "Værmin" (Modern Recordings, BMG, 2022).

Blind musician Hrant Kenkulian (1901-1978), generally known as Oudi Hrant was a master of the oud (fretless lute) who was probably best known for his taksims. He was an Armenian born in Adapazar, a city close to Istanbul which had a large Armenian population before the Genocide of 1915. After WWI, Hrant's family settled in Istanbul. Hrant started out singing in the church choir, but soon moved on to the oud. He made his career in Istanbul, but he toured the US in 1950, and did a world tour in 19…