★Death Is Not The End
Pinoy Folk Rock
A 90 minute cassette-only mixtape taking in Filipino folk, rock, country & OPM from the 1970s, originally broadcast on NTS Radio back during the early months of the pandemic. One missed out of the collection of dinte radio shows committed to tape as part of 10 year anniversary celebrations last year.
Stars from Another Sky Pt. 1: Film Songs from the Subcontinent Before the World Was Torn Asunder, 1932-1939
"It may surprise some that, after two decades of silent films, when Alam Ara broke the silence in 1931, it and every South Asian talkie that followed was what we in the West think of as a "musical." Music had been integral to the culture's staged drama going back to the Gupta Dynasty — sometime between the 4 th and 6 th Century CE. Since its inception, South Asian cinema drew heavily from Marathi, Parsi, and Bengali musical theatre and silent film screenings were often accompanied by live music …
In Search of Revolutionary Voices: Mexican Wax Cylinder Recordings, 1900-1910
A collection of Mexican recordings dating from approximately 1900 to 1910. Corridos, zarzuelas, poetry, popular songs, police bands, solo harps & guitars, all taken from wax cylinders issued from the beginning of the 20th century through to roughly the start of the Mexican revolution.
Inspired by Dr. Fatima Volkoviskii's paper 'In Search of Revolutionary Voices: Performance Practices of Mexican Singers in Cylinder Recordings' delivered at the Early Recordings Association's 'Exploring Traditional…
Digging Central Asia: Musical Archaeology along the Silk Road
Anvar Kalandarov is a music archaeologist, musician and producer from Tashkent, Uzbekistan with a focus on unearthing rare and hard to find gems from across Central Asia. Last year he compiled Synthesizing the Silk Roads: Uzbek Disco, Tajik Folktronica, Uyghur Rock & Tatar Jazz, released in collaboration with Ostinato Records. He also runs his own label Maqom Soul Records. Digging Central Asia is a mixtape that journeys through the psychedelic landscapes of the Silk Road, featuring recordings re…
Let Me Perish Without Return: Lament and Longing from the Fading Russian Empire, 1889-1917
Tip Our next release with Gary Sullivan's Bodega Pop project - rooted in a passion for digging for music in bodegas and cell-phone stores across NYC's boroughs. This edition focuses in on early recordings found in Russian neighborhoods in Brooklyn & Queens. "At the turn of the last century, the Russian Empire stood at a crossroads, caught between the weight of its imperial past and the promise of a radically altered future. Recorded during a period of profound cultural transformation and unrest,…
Waiting for Your Return: A Shidaiqu Anthology 1927-1952, Pt. I
Shidaiqu literally means "songs of the era", a term used to describe a hybrid musical genre that first began permeating through the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai in the late 1920s. Blending western pop, jazz, blues and Hollywood-inspired film soundtracks with traditional Chinese elements, the shidaiqu represented a musical and cultural merging that would go on to shape a golden age of Chinese popular song & film in the pre-communism interwar period.
Waiting for Your Return brings together a wide…
Begging the Moon: Phleng Thai Sakon & Luk Krung, 1945-1960
Begging the Moon is a collection focused upon an early-to-mid 20th century style of Thai popular song, commonly named Phleng Thai sakon (meaning "song which is both Thai and universal"). With recordings taken from the end of WWII until the start of the 1960s, many of these tracks may also be referred to as Luk krung (meaning "child of the city") a more urbanised style of popular song that is in contrast to the Thai country music known as Luk thung ("child of the field").
Following the Thai cultu…
The Past Is a Wound in My Heart
Death Is Not The End platforms a selection of brooding, haunting Turkish tango recordings from the decades following the foundation of the republic in the early 1920s through to the mid 1950s.
If I Had a Pair of Wings: Jamaican Doo Wop, Vol. 3
A third and final volume of Jamaican doo wop & R&B records taken from the late 50s and early 60s. These records represent a period in which sound-systems were beginning to dominate the island, with Duke Reid and Sir Coxsone Dodd stepping up their rivalry by beginning to make and release their own records rather than rely on US imports for use in their dances. Many of these records are definitely more-or-less imitations of the American records, as the uniquely Jamaican ska sound was yet to take h…
If I Had A Pair Of Wings: Jamaican Doo Wop, Vol. 2
Repressed by popular demand! Lauren Laverne's comp of the week on BBC Radio 6 Music w/c 11th Jan.
My Greatest Revenge: Flamenco Recordings, 1904-1938
Death Is Not The End presents a collection of haunted, brooding flamenco recordings taken from the early 1900s through to the late 1930s.
If You Want to Make a Lover: Palm Wine, Akan Blues & Early Guitar Highlife, Pt. I
The first part in a collection encompassing Akan blues, palm wine and early guitar-based highlife music, with recordings dating from the late 1920s through to the end of the 1950s.
I Had The Craziest Dream: Modern Jazz And Hard-Bop In Post War London, Vol. 2
The second volume in a survey of the modern jazz & hard-bop scenes that emerged in the new cultural melting pot of post war London, with recordings from the end of the 1940s through to the early 1960s. Featuring representations from players whose roots lay in the East-End's jewish community alongside a wealth of talent of Caribbean and African descent playing and recording in post war London during this period. Made in partnership with the Barbican to coincide with the exhibition Postwar Modern:…
Lamkin: Versions & Variants Across the Northern Hemisphere
Death is Not the End teams up with folklorist Derek Piotr once more for this bumper archive of North American folk music, this time focusing on every version they could find of the ballad 'Lamkin'. It's a fascinating study that displays how a standard was able to shift and evolve as it moved from person to person over the decades.
I Had The Craziest Dream: Modern Jazz And Hard-Bop In Post War London, Vol. 3
The third volume in a survey of the modern jazz & hard-bop scenes that emerged in the new cultural melting pot of post war London, with recordings from the end of the 1940s through to the early 1960s. Featuring representations from players whose roots lay in the East-End's jewish community alongside a wealth of talent of Caribbean and African descent playing and recording in post war London during this period. Made in partnership with the Barbican to coincide with the exhibition Postwar Modern: …
Selected Improvisations From Golha, Pt. I
Tip! *In process of stocking* A collection of stunning Persian-tuned piano pieces cut from Iranian national radio broadcasts made for the Golha programmes between 1956 & 1965... Morteza Mahjubi (1900-1965) was a Iranian pianist & composer who developed a unique tuning system for the piano which enabled the instrument to be played in all the different modes and dastgahs of traditional Persian art music. Known as Piano-ye Sonnati, this technique allowed Mahjubi to express the unique ornamental and…
Ever Since We've Known It: More North Carolina Mountain Singing
London's Death Is Not The End rope in folklorist Derek Piotr to curate another mystical collection of crackly mountain music from North Carolina. Powerful, soul-stirring unaccompanied vocal music.
I Had the Craziest Dream: Modern Jazz and Hard-Bop in Post War London, Vol. 1
Another luminous compilation from London's Death is Not the End, this time examining the city's modern jazz and hard-bop scenes from the end of the 1940s until the early '60s.