Folk & Traditional / All styles

 The mysterious pseudonym remains, in this, the second release in the Taste of Ra trilogy. The accompanying information describes the music as such: "When your ears are gates and they're wide open. Levels of sound will chase you down, collide, kiss and fight. In the yard that you now found; The past will meet the present, you're paying past with present. When you finally hear her voice that makes you leave your body behind and meet as gods...Sound will evolve and something that was once heard…

Via Lattea is the new recording project of the music and performance research ensemble Enten Hitti. The work takes inspiration from research on the “feminine” and from the matrilineal transmission of life. It is the result of various research trips to the places where the culture of the “sacred female” took shape over 4000 years ago: Cyprus, Crete, Turkey, Ireland, South Africa, Indonesia … The historical and geographical suggestions have been freely reinterpreted and transformed into musical pi…

Funeral Folk is a musical collaboration between Sara Parkman and Maria W Horn. Together they explore the rituals of grief and the musical phenomenology of death through their respective crafts and influences. Sara Parkman is a violinist, singer and composer focused on Swedish folk music. For her latest release Vesper, she has been diving into her Christian heritage - the sacred music that has been a part of her family traditions for several generations. Maria W Horn is a contemporary composer em…

* Edition of 300. Recorded by Charles Duvelle in Mostaganem (Algeria). * This version of the ‘imâra starts with the qahili introduction in the form of a prayer to the prophet, then the tawhid (the affirmation of divine unicity) : « lâ illâha illah llah ».  This same dikhr (psalmody) quickens its pace, at first very slowly, then more and more rapid until the name of Allah is repeated to a binary rhythm.  The fuqâra will shortly retain only hu (from Allahu) as it is gradually imposed by the qutb (…

First time on CD, first vinyl reissue. Remastered from the Original Master Tapes. Liner notes by Lenny Kaye (Nuggets, Patti Smith), Devendra Banhart, and Nick Cave. The late Karen Dalton has been the muse for countless folk rock geniuses, from Bob Dylan to Devendra Banhart, from Lucinda Williams to Joanna Newsom. Legendary singer Lacy J. Dalton actually adopted her hero's surname as her own when she started her career in country music. Karen Dalton had that affect on people -- her timeless, achi…

500 copies. Orange vinyl Originally released in 1966. John Fahey's never recorded an album that was more thoroughly of its moment. From the groovy flute and twangy sitar accompaniment to the backwards guitar, this Birthday Party is a charmingly trippy 60s time capsule. But it isn't a two dimensional one. The album gains immense depth from the tension between his sweeping, fingerpicked melodies and discordant string-battery. It's the audible battle between yearned for rose colored luminescence a…

2018 Stock. 180 gram audiophile vinyl. The Pentangle was the 1968 debut album of the band Pentangle: Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn and Danny Thompson. It brought together their separate influences of folk, jazz, blues, early music and contemporary song-writing. One of the band's most commercially successful albums, it reached number 21 in the British charts.By the time that the album was produced, the members of Pentangle were already accomplished musicians, in their own f…

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’, …

re-released on its original label, Honest Jon's, with new and improved gatefold card wallet sleeve packaging. Poet, composer, street musician and cosmologist Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin, 1916-1999) learned rhythm from American Indians and counterpoint from J.S. Bach. Many of his recordings feature instruments he built himself: trimba, yukh, tuji, oo. Sometimes you can hear in the background the streets of New York, where Moondog often slept. In addition, he was blind, due to an accident when he…

Back in 1971, Luke Gibson entered at the studio  to record, for the first time a solo album. He had played before on garage blues group Luke and the Apostles and  psych pop Kensington Market. He focused on his own songs and recorded them as he felt. The result was Another Perfect Day, one of the best singer songwriter albums to came out from Canada in the 70's and one of the most underated too.  The sessions were produced by Gene Martynec (Kensington Market) and captured all the emotions of …

*In process of stocking.* For a decade, Maxine Funke has cut an idiosyncratic path as a singer-songwriter, all the while avoiding the parochial retreads of that worn-out label. Funke's music is intimate and deeply intelligent, buoyed by a sense of effortlessness that belies a scrupulous attention to the smallest of details.Lace was originally released as a CD-R in 2008 on Alastair Galbraith's Next Best Way label. Imagine the just-so arrangements of Josephine Foster and the knowing quotidian eye …

*In process of stocking.* For a decade, Maxine Funke has cut an idiosyncratic path as a singer-songwriter, all the while avoiding the parochial retreads of that worn-out label. Funke's music is intimate and deeply intelligent, buoyed by a sense of effortlessness that belies a scrupulous attention to the smallest of details.Felt appeared in 2012 in a vinyl edition of 100 on the Epic Sweep imprint. This album has an altogether more crepuscular feel, making slightly fuller use of the sonic palette …

LP version. "Although not as well known as his peers (Roy Harper, John Marytn, and Bert Jansch), the name Michael Chapman is an important one in the linage of English folk rock guitarists and singer/songwriters of the late '60s/early '70s. For those unfamiliar with Chapman's work, Roy Harper might be his closest musical cousin (and both artists were signed to EMI's seminal stoner record label Harvest -- also home to Kevin Ayers and Syd Barrett). Like other Harvest artists, Chapman's music…

Like all good parables Jane Weaver’s sixth solo album, a concept album called The Silver Globe, is as multifaceted as it is beguiling. Part coming of age/part cautionary tale and part romantic peon, this synth ridden post-apocalyptic prog pop opus is based on tightly embroidered, non-linear recurring themes and inspired by esoteric stories, cosmic imagery and refiltered past experiences. Written from the optimistic vantage of a long-standing female independent artist, in an desperately evolving …

Originally issued as a limited CD only bonus disc for The Silver Globe album global re-release and a subsequent vinyl pressing, The Amber Light surprised fans expecting B-sides and outtakes with what for many stood up as its own isolated project including some of Jane Weaver’s best material to date including the pulsating synth anthem I Need A Connection which since became a radio favourite also appearing on film and fashion shows throughout the latter half of 2015. The Amber Light also included…

*In process of stocking* Amal al-Atrash (1912 – 1944), better known by her stage name Asmahan, was an Egyptian singer and actress of Syrian origins who lived in Egypt. Having immigrated to Egypt at the age of three years old, her family knew the composer Dawood Hosni, and she sang the compositions of Mohamed El Qasabgi and Zakariyya Ahmad. She also sang the compositions of Mohammed Abdel Wahab and her brother Farid al-Atrash, a then rising star musician in his own right. Her voice was one of the…

Tip! *In process of stocking* 'Gongs have played an integral role in the mythogeography of Asia. This is not music that aligns with national borders or ideas of homogenous populations, let alone racial stereotypes and exotic clichés. What connects all of these tracks is a simultaneous feeling of entrancement and social cohesion. Communal and collaborative, its form is hypnotically repetitious, melodies and rhythms spread out among the players using the technique of hocketing in which a flowing l…

Tip! *Limited edition of 70 copies, only a few available courtesy of Edições CN* To celebrate Edições CN’s almost 10 years of existence. To celebrate a friendship. And to celebrate catalogue number 37: here’s the mysterious Numpty with a selection of min’yō and Ryukyu folk music.

Josephine Foster's "No More Lamps In the Morning" is a new folk route, a stripped down starsailor vector connecting heller to highwater. Foster, on nylon string guitar, and husband Victor Herrero, accompanying on Portuguese guitar, together weave intimate readings of songs spanning Foster's songwriting career including selections from recent albums "This Coming Gladness" (2008) and "I'm a Dreamer" (2013) and back to Born Heller (2004). Foster's new route is a free, chromatic music, a tuneful mon…

Ghent-based wanderer Benoit Monsieurs has been exploring the many routes paved by the primitive folk guitarists of legend and is now carving out his own path as Venediktos Tempelboom. These seven tracks straddle the Eastern and Western codes that so infused the hazy Americana pioneered by the John Faheys and the Robbie Bashos of this earth, with the always-haunting Flemish landscape unmistakably lining the contours.

*In process of stocking. 100 copies limited edition* Gustavo Yashimura-Arce comes from humble origins in the Ayacucho region of the Peruvian Andes. He started playing guitar in 1987 and 2 years later he travelled to Montevideo in Uruguay to study music at La Casa de la Guitarra. After spending some years playing classical guitar in Japan, Gustavo returned to Peru in 2004 and began his intense studies of the Andean guitar styles of the Ayacucho region. Later, in 2008 he found the perfect teacher …

* Original 1980 copies * Aboriginal musicians receive songs both from an eternal realm known as The Dreaming and from the ghosts of deceased ancestors. The music of the aborigines--known as "wangga"--rests "on cosmologies and ways of being that are radically different from those shared" by the majority of Australians and others from Western, modernized cultures. Music is primarily sung during ceremonial rites of passage and funeral rituals. Singers may occasionally be accompanied by the droning …

** Limited edition vinyl LP with insert containing lyrics in English and Arabic ** Unique contemporary Arabic folk music sounding unfrozen & released from another time, Natik Awayez has created a pure, expressive sound breaking free like a bundle of torn, faded oracles spreading far and wide across the empty spaces. Rhythmic percussive arrangements by Khaled Yassine are the foundation for oud, violin, buzuq, and Awayez’ lush voice, which floats atop the instrumentation like a series of prayers b…

* 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…

Music originally composed by Elisa Faires for a sound installation. Later released on vinyl by Eroto Tox Decodings. Elisa Faires: composer, recording engineer, mix engineer, producer, design, vocalsThomas Dimuzio: masteringChandra Shukla: designNicole McConville: photography

Comprising Bert Jansch’s seminal 1960s output (alongside his only album as a duet with Pentangle bandmate John Renbourn) this four disc set covers an era that forged creative paths for everyone from Neil Young to Johnny Marr. New listening notes from Bill Leader, as well as unseen photographs from Brian Shuel complete this special collection.  Where to start with a career as prolific as that of Bert Jansch? Why, the beginning of course. Bert’s first studio (though as Bill Leader rightly poin…

*200 copies limited edition* 'The isolation of lockdown was challenging for guitarist J.R. Bohannon. In refreshingly vulnerable linear notes, he describes how his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were made worse by the pandemic. But he accommodated by creating Compulsions, a set of solo acoustic guitar improvisations in an American folk style, each recorded during a panic attack. These slow and melancholy pieces have compelling melodies, which Bohannon used to calm himself. He …

Death is Not the End follow up 'The Sun is Setting on the World' with another set of Greek rebetika from the 1930s to the late 1950s.

In his liner notes to this release, John Fahey mentions his desire to have an entire world orchestra in his guitar, Western to Eastern, bagpipes to gamelan. Perhaps it's this mental approach that sets his music so deliciously far apart from other so-called folk guitarists. Requia is essentially in two sections. One is a series of blues-based pieces in line with music he had previously recorded. These include the lovely "Requiem for John Hurt" and a wry "Fight On Christians, Fight On," both of wh…

*First ever vinyl reissue* '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…

Norwegian folk collective Völvur team up with Scotland's very own Alasdair Roberts for an album combining traditional and modern songs in both groups' native languages – to powerful effect.

*In process of stocking* Union Editions presents Rugiada by Trapcoustic. Written and played by Stefano di Trapani in Roma during xmas 2020. Special thanks to Michele Manfellotto and Grip Casino. Inspiration: Jonida e Arion. Mastering by Luciano Lamanna.

Bud Petal is the stage name of musician Eran Asoulin. His music has been described as ‘cerebral art-folk’ & ‘the music Lord Byron would be making had he lived in the 21st century’. Bud is a true outsider, a freak-folk wunderkind who has been compared to Syd Barret & Daniel Johnston. But don’t for a minute think him primitive or naive - Bud is worldly & word-wise beyond his years. He was ‘discovered’ when his self-produced first album was pulled from the trash at a local radio station. A self-tau…

**500 copies in gimmick cover** One of the most legendary LPs from Uruguay remains a hidden treasure in the rest of the world. It is the first LP by singer Diane Denoir. Diane was a regular in the “Conciertos Beat” (“Beat Concerts”) of Montevideo's 1960s scene where she performed with Eduardo Mateo on guitar (leader of El Kinto, one of the most influential bands in "candombe beat", and the ones who coined the term), Roberto Galletti on drums and Antonio Lagarde on double bass.Diane was also Mate…

The Book of AM* is a collection of inspirational songs, poems and stories composed in different parts of the world through the millennia up to the present day and edited and set to music and graphics by Juan Arkotxa and Leslie MacKenzie. The Book expresses core themes from Eastern and Western philosophical and religious traditions and it follows the cycle of day with five parts - Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night. When the Book was first published in 1977 the incomplete Part V, Night, …

"We are proud to present the first ever vinyl reissues of Dutch singer-songwriter Fon Klement, starting with their two BASF albums from 1973 and 1974, which will undoubtedly be the discovery of the year for anyone into the likes of Nick Drake, Nick Garrie, Duncan Brown or even Sixto Rodriguez. Originally released in BASF in 1973, the Wah Wah reissue will come housed in a quality glossy laminated gatefold sleeve reproducing the original artwork, remastered sound, and featuring an insert with phot…

"We are proud to present the first ever vinyl reissues of Dutch singer-songwriter Fon Klement, starting with their two BASF albums from 1973 and 1974, which will undoubtedly be the discovery of the year for anyone into the likes of Nick Drake, Nick Garrie, Duncan Brown or even Sixto Rodriguez. Originally released in BASF in 1974, the Wah Wah reissue will come housed in a quality glossy laminated gatefold sleeve reproducing the original artwork, remastered sound, and featuring an insert with phot…

Recorded in 1971 and issued originally only in France by CBS, the first LP by post Spoils Of War band Mormos is a masterpiece of fabulous experimental psychedelic acid folk sounds and bizarre melodies. Influences from contemporaries such as The Incredible String Band are present, as are some resemblances to the recordings of other acts like Comus or Dr. Strangely Strange, but the Mormos sound creates unique athmospheres unheard in any other works of the era that can be fragile and weird in equal…

Rontheo is one of the rarest folk rock LPs to come out of the kraut scene of the seventies. Formed by Canadian RON di Tomaso and German THEO Busch it has become one of the most coveted pieces among collectors and afficionados. Wah Wah records is proud to announce at least an official vinyl reissue, made from the original master tapes and with the help & cooperation from both Ron & Theo themselves!When Theo Busch and Ronnie di Tomaso first met in 1975 it was immediately clear that Theo's violin p…

"Ton Vlasman recorded this amazing piece of acid Euro folk back in 1970, making it sound like an outer space freaked out Bob Dylan with the help of Frans Schoonen (organ, flute and harmonica) and Leo van Vugt (chincha tumba and tambourine). The seven original compositions are stunning, drug inspired psychedelic pieces of acid folk that mix acid folk with Indian ragas and even add some Pink Floyd overtones, yet from an acoustic rather than electric point of view. And the album contains als…