Folk & Traditional / All styles

Richard Youngs presents his debut recording for BaDaBing Records, and the label is looking forward to a long relationship. For Summer Through My Mind, Youngs pushes himself into a challenging new sphere yet again. A renowned musician with over 40 albums to his name, he goes somewhere he never has before - to the heart of American music. Summer Through My Mind is a country music album, warped through Youngs's ambidextral mind. A warning: it's not like any country album one has heard before. There…

This third release from the Peruvian spiritual collective (roughly translated as Mountain Community) continues to deliver deeply personal devotional music honouring their natural surroundings in the river valley outside Lima. As with previous releases, much of the music was recorded and composed on the spot, making them truly unique improvisational journeys to inner peace. Like 70s krautrockers Amon Düül, with a communal vibe with religious overtones to their soothing, meditative music. Nature i…

Native californian guitarist danny paul grody has always been more of a fellow traveller than a true disciple of the american primitive school. he came up in gauzy, san francisco post-rock outfits like tarentel and the drift. his music is spare and otherworldly. his ideas, more often than not, are realized in repetition rather than in florid displays of virtuosity. his compositions seem to owe as much to john luther adams as to john fahey. one imagines the grooves on his copy of the seminal west…

Daniel Higgs has always been held in the highest esteem by us here at Southern, becoming an almost totemic figure in the process. Certainly an appreciation for his work, and the canon of the band Lungfish, has been a job requirement for all the staff who've worked with us over the years. He has graced us with visits from time to time, and his London shows have always been must attend events for Southern alumni. Naturally, a Latitudes recording would be the jewel in the crown for our catal…

Greek Rhapsody -- Instrumental Music from Greece 1905-1956 is a 2CD collection featuring 42 tracks meticulously remastered from 78rpm recordings of Greek instrumentals (1905 to 1956). Many tracks are rare and never previously reissued on CD or vinyl; some are taken from the only known copies, while previously reissued tracks are here offered in far superior sound quality. This compilation offers, for the first time, a unique panorama of the instruments and styles of the Greek music of the…

Molam is a multi-faceted folk country music native to Laos and the collection of rural Northeastern Thai provinces called Isan. Molam is an umbrella term used for numerous Lam styles. It literally translates into "expert singer" or "expert song." Featured here on volume two of this series are Lam Phun, Lam Thuy, Lam Plern, Lam Dern, and Lam Sing styles of Molam recordings from the 1970s and 1980s. All of these forms are built from a tradition that is centuries-old. A few examples of Molam…

Double LP reissue of the long out-of-print classic CD first released in 2004 -- the first modern electrified Molam recordings from the 1970s ever presented outside Thailand. Molam is a multi-faceted folk music native to Laos and the predominantly rural Northeastern region of Thailand known as Isan, home to myriad ethnic groups and provinces, and once a part of present-day Laos. Mo meaning "master" and lam meaning "song," "molam" literally translates into "master singer," but it remains mor…

This vinyl-only album fills a crucial gap in the evolution of legendary folk artist Spider John Koerner. Recorded in between 1965's Spider Blues and 1969's Running, Jumping, Standing Still (with Willie Murphy, both released on Elektra), Koerner is captured here live and unaccompanied at The Ash Grove in Los Angeles, bringing to light an exciting and previously-undocumented period in the career of Spider John. The excellent recording captures Koerner at the absolute peak of his guitar-playin…

Time of the Last Persecution is Bill Fay's second and final album for the Deram label, originally released in 1971. An absolute classic of melancholy (borderline morbid) folk-rock that falls somewhere between Pearls Before Swine, Leonard Cohen, and a suicide prevention hotline. Time of the Last Persecution is almost single-mindedly obsessed with end times so it's fitting that this brilliant album would be his last release for over 30 years. Now that Fay is back with a new and highly laude…

! NOTE NEW PRICING! Alasdair Roberts is bidding farewell to his nom-de-musique, APPENDIX OUT. What once was Appendix Out is now & forever Alasdair Roberts. The broadest work in young Roberts' canon so far. Heavily steeped in the lineage of European folk, the words & music of "Farewell Sorrow" evoke a spirit of youth, an air of reckless abandon, a passion not meant to stay in this world.

"Since 2005, Tompkins Square label's Imaginational Anthem compilations have featured some of the greatest acoustic guitarists in the world, with recordings spanning five decades. More than mere samplers, these albums have served as state-of-the-art dispatches from the front lines of the art form. Imaginational Anthem Vols. 1-5 is a specially priced 6CD box set, limited to 999 copies, featuring the first five volumes in their originals packaging, plus an exclusive live bonus disc from Willia…

There is a legend in Burma stating that swarms of male dragonflies gather to join in choruses of high-pitched tones to court their mates. The ones that don't succeed in mating eventually scream so loud that their chests explode and they drop dead to the ground. These recordings are a tribute to this legend. Droning cicadas, dragonflies, and other insects display their charm as masters of the high frequency airwaves, recorded live and unprocessed by Tucker Martine in the lush settings of L…

"Compilation of truly great sorrowful American ballads recorded between 1927 and 1943. Songs mostly about murder, death, and broken hearted-ness. Lots of intense minor chords and stark gritty vocals. Artists include Emry Arthur, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Red Hot Old Mose, the DeZurik Sisters, Shortbuckle O'Rourke and Family, Jimmie Tarlton, Mississippi John Hurt and more. Mountain bluesmen and songsters presenting their darkest & most intense work. Old school 'tip on' sleeves."

Two days before the 2012 rebellion in northern Mali. Soldiers are everywhere. Guns mounted on pickups; low-flying surveillance planes. Several thousand people have gathered outside Timbuktu to celebrate the music and culture of the Sahara at the 12th edition of the Festival au Desert. Three months later, Sharia descends on northern Mali. A millennial history is suppressed. Shrines destroyed. Secular music banned. Before, the streets were alive with music. Weddings, baptisms, celebrations …

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 bl…

The Voice of the Turtle is one of the most beguiling albums from one of America's most legendarily beguiling musicians. Originally released in 1968 on his own Takoma label, Fahey credits some of the compositions and performances to the fictional guitarist Blind Joe Death, and some of the songs are actually rumored to not be Fahey at all but in fact obscure blues 78s. Whatever the case may be, it's one of Fahey's most adventurous and beautiful LPs, with the three lengthy improvisational pie…

Some cream for your acid-folk tea - hitherto unreleased sides from the two and a half bards (well, two bards and a maiden - forsooth!) who self-released All On the First Day back in '72. These include studio recordings from later in the 70s, a couple live songs and an outtake from the legendary album itself! Well, the first legendary album anyway - for Blue Clouds is clearly another.

Originally released in 1981, JANDEK'S second album stands as an incredible document of the formative stages of his cracked genius. The musical elements are almost catatonic: 9 songs drift by as a series of slight variations on several desolate, untuned acoustic guitar phrases. First time on vinyl in over 25 years. Old-style tip on jacket. LIMITED!

A year after the Clean's reunion LP Vehicle (also their first proper album ever) put them back on the international-pop radar in 1990, guitarist David Kilgour retreated with his new Revox tape machine (which he'd been singing about rapturously in his side-project Stephen and elsewhere: "Have you seen my new tape machine?!") and cut his first solo album, Here Come the Cars, issued by Flying Nun in 1991. From the jarring cover image of David through to the last note, Here Come the Cars is a specia…

A contemporary survey of the tribal music of Ethiopia. Recorded in 2009 by Olivia Wyatt, this double LP showcases an array of mind-blowing sounds from the "land of eternal sunshine." Presented in this visually stunning gatefold are audio examples ranging from remote tribes -- of the Ethiopian highlands, the lower Omo and the Great Rift Valley -- to their electric analogues in the sweaty beerhalls of Addis Ababa. This collection features songs from the Azmari, poet-musicians who play the k…

The first vinyl document of the Dredd and MV & EE collab recordings, this is a reissue of two deep sides originally released in 2004, as companion volumes to Kissing the Contemporary Bliss, in extremely limited runs. The sessions behind this record represent a singular apex of high in the catalogs of both Dredd Foole and MV & EE, where the playing and being of each of the three individuals involved coalesces into a singularly cosmic perception and extrapolation of the blues doctors' truth…

Apart from the fact that “MV & EE” is slang for zero gravity and that they’ve been doing it consistently “better” with good vibes/jams they still WANT to give you more of the best of them. This is their “space homestead” and for good reason this wall of sound applied thru DIY sensibilities was recorded over the course of a year in 9 different studios, presenting as clearly as circumstances can permit, a living idea right here in the now of what it is all about. These are sonics in motion,…

In the year since Luke Roberts recorded his debut Big Bells and Dime Songs a lot has changed. Luke now owns a guitar (a Collings 000 2H model) that his sophomore album was written on, he has moved from Brooklyn to Montana to Nashville, his childhood home, and the songs were written over a long period of time in his Brooklyn apartment (as opposed to largely on the bus down to the studio on the debut). The combination of changes made a significant and noticeable impact on the songwriting an…

Well further gifts abound, as this 1976 concert on Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City will attest. Clearly, the explorations of Sandy Bull were not lost on the far-out audiences of the Bay Area, and though the heady days of the '60s have gone, the Berkeley heads are still in full force, hanging on Sandy's every note with a clearly expressed delight as they wait for headliner Leo Kottke to take the stage. Even though there were no further albums after 1972's Demolition Derby (a candidate for unhi…

In Search of Light is the full-length follow-up to the well-received Fountain (RS 057CD), Danny Paul Grody's debut solo release. Many listeners no doubt recognize Grody from his work in San Francisco-based groups Tarentel and The Drift. As a solo artist, he produces wistful, poignant music culled principally from acoustic guitar and synthesizer. Grody's work recalls aspects of the post-Takoma school in that fingerpicked, cyclical melodies make up the crux of many of his recordings. However,…

Work of this quality tends to be the product of a self-contained and selfconcsious tradition, even if a hermetic one. And in this case I fancy I can hear the flowering of a Northern/Midlands sensibilty that setms orignally from the A Band, Youngs and Wickham-Smith, and Ashtray Navigations. It is informed by ecstatic jazz but its roots are in pragmatic sonic experimentalism of a determindedly autochthonous kind. You can almost smell the witch trials in this, and I urge you all to catch a h…

Every new Richard Youngs LP is in some way an event – his modus is so restless and yet his muse remains so distinctively personal that it’s always a thrill to see where he’s gonna dive in next. Amaranthine puts his vocals way up front for a series of four ecstatic bardic/future folk classics that ride in on wave after staggering wave of free form percussion, clanging household objects, shakuhachi and fuzz guitar. The vocals fall into the classic post-Summer Wanderer style of endlessly rep…

In the Djebala foothills of the Rif Mountains in northern Morocco is the ancient village of Jajouka. For hundreds of years music has poured out of that village, music by the world’s only “4000 year old rock band” (William Burroughs), the Master Musicians of Jajouka. For hundreds of years the Master Musicians were the musical group of choice for the princes of Morocco, but they were not heard outside their native soil.Fast forward to 1950, Morocco, free of French and Spanish colonialism, is alive…

Opika Pende: Africa At 78 RPM is a 4CD collection featuring 100 tracks taken from rare 78rpm recordings of African music (1909 to mid-1960s), none of which have ever been issued on CD until now. Pan-African in scope and wildly diverse, Opika Pende is a testament to the deep riches found in early recorded music across the continent. 112-page softcover book with 4 CDs in a separate portfolio -- all housed in a deluxe cloth slipcase. Jonathan Ward is a Los Angeles-based collector, researche…

Restocked, reduced price 'winter family are the brooklyn based duo of ruth rosenthal and xavier klaine. alt.vinyl is proud to release this double vinyl ltd edition edition (300 copies only) of their latest intensely atmospheric work. artwork by franz vesolt, layout by fabien lehalle. audio mastering by patrick klem. review: a rare and unique audio worldview expressed by the singular approach of brooklyn based duo ruth rosenthal (spoken words) and xavier klaine (harmonium, organ etc..). fro…

Heresy of the Free Spirit is a trio comprised of Dutch lute player, Jozef Van Wissem and Brooklyn based multi-instrumentalists, Che Chen (of True Primes) on violin, bowed rawap, bass recorder, percussion and tape machines, and Robbie Lee (of Howling Hex, Baby Dee) on portative organ, bass recorder, guitar, banjo and electronics. Using early European as well as non-western instruments and electronics, the trio plays arrangements of Van Wissem’s lute compositions as well as free improvisations tha…

The 1978 release of Corwood Industries Ready For The House, began one of the most compelling, disturbed, and singular legacies in musical history. In the 30 years since this unique debut, Jandek has released 53 albums of mournful, atonal music that continues to defy classification and accessibility. And while the past three decades of intense productivity have yielded a depth of discussion, a handful of legendary live performances and even a film documentary, no amount of time or experien…

RESTOCKED: Golden Trees is a minimalist psych-folk masterpiece. A supergroup of sorts, Helen Rush, Pat Gubler and Samara Lubelski have created seven songs characterized as much by quiet and restraint than by their acclaimed musicianship. The lyrical lines in these songs appear suspended between pregnant pauses of silence and subtle instrumental flourishes. On one side of the gap, Samara Lubelski's violin invokes the Velvets and other avant string-players. On the other side, P.G. Six layers effec…

Restocked, now out of print: Pakistani-born musician Ilyas Ahmed traffics a sound that borders on the folk/drone/raga/rock axis, one that Scottish critic David Keenan has called “gone”. Currently residing in Portland, OR, Ahmed has released recordings on Time-Lag, Digitalis, and Root Strata. He is known to perform live with Honey Owens (Valet) and Jed Bindeman (Eternal Tapestry, Heavy Winged) and his recent recordings have featured Liz Harris (Grouper). He first appeared in the Fall of 2005 with…

Debut vinyl release for both of these great artists who collectively have had releases on a host of excellent underground labels such as Stunned Records, Housecraft, Sturmundrugs Records and Digitalis. Black Eagle Child is the musical project of Michael Jantz, and this release is his second outing for Blackest Rainbow following his excellent Kite Excursions CDR a while back. Here he presents us with 4 tracks of skillful guitar finger picking layered with glockenspeil, accordian and some perfectl…

Vinyl edition of this stunningly beautiful album of fragile and haunting Korean folk from Kim Doo Soo that was issued earlier this year on CD by Japan's consistently incredible PSF label. Kim Doo Soo's first major appearance outside of Korea was through the Damon & Naomi curated 'International Sad Hits' compilation featuring 4 tracks from Kim. This was followed with PSF releasing his first new record in 5 year, 2007's superb '10 Days Butterfly'. On 'Evening River', Kim has re-recorded some of hi…

One track, Ten minutes. Latest Latitudes session from Mira Billotte and Doug Shaw’s Psychedelic folk combo.- New Egypt follows White Magic's hugely successful Dark Stars EP (Drag City, 2007).- This track was created specially for the Latitudes series and recorded during White Magic's 2007 European tour.- As usual this Latitudes release is in super fancy art cardstock packaging with gold foil blocking, limited to 1000 only!When i saw White Magic play for the first time I walked away charmed and e…

"Second chapter on the Bröselmaschine saga after a four-year hiatus. The band's second incarnation came to life in 1975, when Peter Bursch reformed the group together with old member Willi Kissmer and new recruit, Klaus Dapper (flute, sax, tuba). Helped by such honorable guests as Mani Neumeier and Roland Schaeffer (from Guru Guru) or Jan Fride from Kraan, their 1976 album was a solid session of progressive folk, very different than its predecessor but also with an atypically hypnotic and…

“The Absence is a 7” single, a collaboration between Rainier Lericolais and Sylvain Chauveau, released on February 2011 for Abstracks, Rainier's exhibition at Le Confort Moderne (Poitiers, France). The two tracks on The Absence were built from Sylvain vocal recording sessions for his album Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) (Type / 2010), Rainier added his delicate arrangements of piano, xylophone, cello and weird electronics, in a similar vein to his previous single, Intangible (Sordide Sentim…

35 years have passed since Bill’s last new slab of vinyl was released. We bring you this set of gems from ‘78–’81. It’s bursting with a couple new tracks (with a few traded out from the ‘05 CD), a new sequence, new art, and expanded liner notes by the man himself.