Folk & Traditional / Religious

Another limited first-time double vinyl and cassette release for recordings from Deben Bhattacharya’s early 1970s journeys around South East Asia, this time focused on the traditional and religious music of Thailand.

Oidupaa Vladimir Oyun was a Tuvan musician and a man with an amazing, but really heavy destiny, a man of unbending will and divine talent and the creator of a unique style of throat singing, accompanied by playing the button accordion. Researchers described Oidupaa's style as blues and emphasized the complexity of this style of performance, which requires the singer to exert a lot of tension on the vocal cords. This is the author's unique version of the deepest and most powerful type of throat s…

* Includes a 28-page booklet with liner notes by Senri Miyazato in Japanese and English (English translation by Linda Havenstein) * Historical recording of the sacred Izaiho ritual, an inauguration ceremony of female priests held once in twelve years in Kudaka island, which is located approximately five kilometers east west from the Okinawa island. Izaiho ended in 1978 due to a lack of successors, and this is a recording of the final ritual.

West Virginia Snake Handler Revival "They Shall Take Up Serpents" marks the arrival of a landmark record, documenting the last, snake handling church in Appalachia. Featuring hillbilly rock guitars, trance-like rhythms, and howling vocals, this album was recorded 100% live and without overdubs by Grammy-award winning producer and author, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project). The first release of American music ever by Sublime Frequencies, Brennan states, "As much …

"The Begena is one of those rare musical instruments of the world that has survived for more than 5800 years. What is fascinating about it is not only its age but the fact that both its manufacture and the purpose for which it is being played have never changed during all these years. It is still made of wood and animal products, such as the intestine of the sheep for the strings, the leather that covers the sound box. It is used for praying, for praising God and for meditation, just as it was i…

"Deep session! It is rare to hear folk music from Japan in such beautiful fidelity and incredible dynamics. This recording is intensely gorgeous and hauntingly disarming. This should open up a whole new world of adventurous listening for folks outside (and inside!) Japan."―Brian Shimkovitz  "Sounds absolutely great! Super interesting and engaging."―Ben UFO "Just Give Me That Old Time Religion, It's Good Enough For Me."―Japan Blues A hotline to the gods! Kagura is a thousand-year-old form of Japa…

The begena is a ten-stringed lyre central to Ethiopia’s Amharic heritage and Orthodox Tewahido Church. Reserved for spiritual music, it is revered for its mythical origins and unique buzzing sound. Symbolically crafted, the begena is believed to ward off evil and connect players to the divine.

Big Tip! *2024 stock* Qawwali is a syncretic musical form of heterodox Islam (the unorthodox doctrines of the Sufis, a group of ascetics and mystics) in South Asia. Derived from the Arabic Qaul (to say, creed, word), the term designates both an Indian and Pakistani musical genre and its manifestation. A religious song designed to convey the message of Sufi poetry, Qawwali is performed by an ensemble of professional male musicians (the Qawwal) ranging from 3 to 13 people.

2024 stock. This recording presents in its entirety the “Invocation to the Goddess Yeshiki Mamo,” performed by Buddhist monks (lamas) from the Nyingmapa Monastery of Dehra Dun in India with the authorization of the private secretariat of the Dalai Lama. The monks, who represent one of the oldest Buddhist sects to be established in Tibet in the 8th century, are trained to produce vocal sounds at a very low pitch, believing the disembodied sounds to be the nearest to the divine. The liner notes pr…

*2024 stock* Sufi, or Sufism, is often defined as "Islamic mysticism.” Sufism exists in both Sunni and Shia Islam. It is not a distinct sect, rather it is an association or fraternity for the achievement of religious enthusiasm and ecstasy by means of exercise undertaken in common. This 1959 recording is of a Rifa' Ceremony performed in South Africa. The Rifa’ association was originally found mainly in the Middle East eventually spreading to Malaysia and Africa.

New album from Blod recorded during the second half of 2022 by Gustaf Dicksson. Där Ska Barnet Vara is a continuation of the themes explored on Pilgrimssånger and contains nine more songs dealing with faith in different forms, with a strong presence of death. Compared to Pilgrimssånger, the sound is slightly more lo-fi and fucked up and the approach is somewhat looser and more desperate, but here are some of the strongest and most fragile and heartfelt Blod songs to date. Additional players on t…

*2022 stock. In process of stocking* The Ongaku Masters: An Anthology of Japanese Classical Music, a five-CD edition presented in a black linen box, spans 1,000 years of Japanese classical/traditional music, from early Buddhist Shomyo chant to late 20th century Takemitsu. It touches on every relevant stage in the development of Japanese music from the distant origins on the Asian mainland to contemporary expressions. Leading scholars from universities on three continents contributed to extensive…

* Edition of 100 copies - 50% of proceeds go to the Teyuna Foundation. Comes with a nice booklet * This a first of it's kind album of ancestral music from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. Theirs is a sophisticated music that navigates the multidimensional realms in order to offer payment and thanks to Mother Earth while also creating health and harmony within the listener. We have much to learn from our 'older brothers'. The mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Colombia …

Includes two full-sized inserts: Includes download code; Edition of 300. "After a concert of Kenyan singer Ogoya Nengo in Berlin in 2015 in a pleasant conversation Guillermo Lares told me about his father, Oswaldo Lares, a studied architect who, parallel with his professional activity, began to make field recordings of the traditional and indigenous Venezuelan music from the early 1960s onwards up until today. His search and fascination for finding the musical roots of his country led Oswaldo La…

Chants, hymns and folk songs from Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish sources, sung by Trio Mediaeval (Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, Berit Opheim) with Arve Henriksen on trumpet. Recorded February 2016 in Munich; produced by Manfred Eicher.

Arrangements of songs, dances and piano pieces by Komitas Vardapet for Armenian folk instruments, played by the ten-member Gurdjieff Ensemble directed by Levon Eskenian. Recorded February 2015 at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano; produced by Manfred Eicher.