Folk /
Éthiopiques 11: The Harp Of King David
*2024 stock* Although commonly know as "King David's harp", the bèguèna is not actually a member of the harp family. It is in fact an oversized lyre with ten strings –usually plucked, sometimes strummed with a plectrum. It is probably the oldest musi…
Éthiopiques 10: Tezeta - Ethiopian Blues & Ballads
*2024 stock* Emptiness, melancholy, nostalgia; doom and gloom, morbid musings; heartache or homesickness: such is the stock in trade of the misery and mournful memories expressed by the song Tezeta - Ethiopia's majestic hymn to the blues. Etymologic…
Giorgos Katsaros
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 …
Éthiopiques 9 (1969-1974)
*2024 stock* The Alèmayèhu songs already presented in Ethiopiques 3 and 8 have given a foretaste of this outstanding stylist of Ethiopian pop, a singer as remarkable for his frenetic rock numbers as for his heartrending ballads. By dint of rampant Am…
Éthiopiques 8: Swinging Addis
*2024 stock* In the 1960s there was a Swinging Addis just as there was a Swinging London. In Ethiopia, as in Europe bor the USA, the first generation born after the war made their noisy, colourful breakthrough onto the scene. A veritable cultural rev…
Éthiopiques 7: Erè Mèla Mèla
*2024 stock* Erè mèla mèla was the very first record of modern Ethiopian music released in Europe (Crammed Discs, Brussells, 1986). It is only logical that it should be reissued today, expanded and remastered, in the Ethiopiques series. This volum 7 …
Éthiopiques 6: Almaz
*2024 stock* For many years everything we knew about Mahmoud Ahmed (and Ethiopian music in general) was limited to the cult album Erè Mèla Mèla (Ethiopiques 7 CD 829802), recorded in 1975 but released for the first time in Europe in 1986. Mahmoud's f…
Éthiopiques 5: Tigrigna Music (Tigra / Eritrea 1970-1975)
*2024 stock* "Tigrigna music" refers to music of Tigray and Eritrea. The majorities in each of these territories share the same language, Tigrigna. Tigrigna music, dominant in Tigray and Eritrea, is quite distinct, both rhythmically and melodically, …
Stars Of Tennessee
"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 …
Éthiopiques 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974)
*2024 stock* In the Ethiopian musical world, Mulatu Astatqé is a typical, totaly unique personality, a legend unto himself. For 30 years, he has been an inescapabe presence, a virtual statue casting a long shadow over the Ethiopian scene. His true si…
Éthiopiques 3: Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* The Amha Records label issued approx 250 tracks in six years (1969-1975). 8 songs on this "Ethiopiques 3" CD are accompanied by bands affiliated with the Police. Indeed, until the very end of the 1960s, Ethiopia had no independant modern…
Éthiopiques 2: Tetchawet!
*2024 stock* Originally wandering minstrels, sharp-tongued peddlers who roamed the old Abyssinian countryside, many azmaris more or less settled down after the founding of Addis-Ababa just over a century ago. The cleverest of them quickly understood …
Éthiopiques 1 - Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* 1969-1978. The main body of Ethiopian records was produced in less than one decade: all in all, just under 500 45s and around 30 LP albums. Amha Eshèté, creator of the Amha Records Label, was the driving force behind this brief creative …
Zanzibara
*2024 stock* Taarab is a genre of music popular in Tanzania and Kenya. It is influenced by the musical traditions of the African Great Lakes, North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. In the 1970s, a new taarab emerged in the coastal…
Qawwali, The Essence Of Desire
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 India…
Waa Dardaaran
*2024 stock* Sahra Halgan is an iconic artist from Somaliland, an independent country since 1991 but not recognized by the international community, formerly a British protectorate in northern Somalia. The granddaughter of a singer and poet, she devot…
It's Sandy Denny
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”.
Istikhbars and Improvisations
*2024 repress* Mustapha Skandrani. Besides having an excellent name, this man, a luminary of Algerian music, possessed a unique musical sense, able to transcend the borders of musical cultures to create a distinctive fusion of Arabo-Andalusian and Eu…
Nanyatoyara
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 musi…
Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World: Yiddisher Jazz in London's East End 1920s-1950s
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 recen…