Folk /
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 that they should set up their own businesses and take a cut on the drinks, instead of getting by on tips earned singing their way from one bar and tedjbèt (taverns serving tedj, the local mead) to another. (…) They have taken over the city by giving …
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 burst and one of the main founders of the modernist movement, which swept the Ethiopian scene during the end of the rule of the Emperor Haile Sellassie. In six years (1969-1975), Amha issued approx 250 tracks. From his first recordings, he dispayed a…
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 towns of Mombasa and Tanga: in Mombasa, Matano Juma's Morning Star replaced strings with distorted organ sounds, amplified violin or clarinet; and Zuhura Swaleh made the electrified tashkota the dominant instrument in his orchestra, while drawing in…
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 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.
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 devoted herself to singing and music in her teens, defying tribal and family conventions.
It was in the context of the war against the dictator Siad Barre's terrible repression in the 80s that Sahra earned her nickname "Halgan", the fighter, and her songs…
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 European styles. "Istikhbars and Improvisations", recorded in 1965 in Paris, is a solo piano album presenting a trans-Mediterranean crossover based on traditional Algerian vocal pieces known as Istikhbars. Playing these istikhbars (which have roots in …
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 musical documents on EM Records. This particular release focuses on the thunderous drums and powerful vocal phrases of the singular Nanyatoyara dance and song, featured at summer festivals in the northern prefectures of Iwate and Aomori, places with long…
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 recently been unearthed, starring a host of recording artists united for the first time. Hear the legendary dance band figures of the era like Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra, and Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band, to the relatively unknown Jewish special…
Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guèbru
"At last! The second LP in our ongoing series of releases from Mariam Tsege Gebru! More 1960s recordings of her truly unique solo piano performances. Mariam Tsege Gebru is a true original - her playing is somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear! All original compositions available for the first time on vinyl beyond the original early 1960s editions, …
Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings
"It has been said that Robbie Basho's art was strongest in concert. To what extent the experience can be reconstituted is uncertain. Whatever the case, Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan is the mother lode of Basho live recordings. On these five discs we are treated to some remarkable pieces that have never been published, as well as surprising renditions of old favourites. Compiled from Basho’s sprawling personal collection of master tapes (discovered during the production of Voice of the E…
Words And Music
Witness to revolutions in jazz and pop, Margo Guryan earned her place in the songwriting pantheon and then some. That she was largely unknown for decades is not the stuff of crushed dreams, but a result of her own choices and priorities. From humble beginnings to the peaks of her 1968 baroque pop masterpiece Take a Picture;and the collected Demos;to the recent viral ubiquity of “Why Do I Cry”, Words and Music captures the entirety of Guryan’s career, featuring 16 previously unreleased recordings…
Wirlmarni
Aboriginal Australian blues, country, and gospel by the great Kankawa Nagarra, Queen of the Bandaral Ngadu Delta.
Souvenirs
From beloved composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, a revelatory new album of vocal pieces. The first vocal album by beloved Ethiopian nun, composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru - profound and deeply moving home cassette recordings made amidst political upheaval and turmoil. These are songs of wisdom, loss, mourning, and exile, sung directly into a boombox and accompanied by Emahoy’s unmistakable piano. Though written and recorded while still living at her family’s home in Addis Ababa, Em…
Live in Siberia
Like many Birch Book/In Gowan Ring fans, we have been waiting for new releases from B'ee. So today, IFP is happy to announce the imminent release of a live recording, which has been in the works for over 10 years. The concert was recorded thirteen years ago, in August 2011, when IFP and friends invited our beloved B'ee to visit us in Siberia, where we were based at that far time.
“Live in Siberia” is a 70-minute immersion in the friendly atmosphere of a small chamber hall and enjoyment of those …
Coming From Reality
Back in 1971, Coming From Reality was Rodriguez’s last gasp, the follow-up to Cold Fact and the final album he was allowed to record for the Sussex label. Unearthed, once again, by Light In The Attic Records, it’s another treat for fans new and old, designed – at the time – as Rodriguez’s vision of a perfect pop album.
Coming From Reality found Rodriguez decamping from Detroit to London’s Lansdowne Studios, where the album was recorded with some of the UK’s top talent including Chris Spedding …
Compathía
While the "acoustic based project[ions]" of Six Organs of Admittance have been pigeonholed by some as a chance-operated celestial jam unit, the group has always been about songs, and nowhere is this more apparent than on their fourth full length album, an eight-song cycle that mixes the strengths of Ben Chasny's acoustic and electric guitar with his knack for placing this on top of disparate and subtle atmospheric backgrounds. The live favorite (and rare single) "Somewhere Between" has been redo…
Ya Hasra: Jewish-Tunisian Jewels, Originals & Reworks
In 1940, over 100,000 Jewish men and women lived in Tunisia. Thirty years later, no more than 10,000 remained. Today, only a few of them have resisted the historical forces that dispersed their families and their neighbours. In spite of this exile, the thousand-year-old presence of Tunisian Jews has left an eternal and delightful imprint on the country’s landscapes and its heritage - cultural, culinary and, of course, musical. Habiba Msika, Louisa Tounsia, Raoul Journo and El Kahlaoui Tounsi, re…
Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music: Mindanoo Mistiru/Gold From Wax
Double CD version. Includes color insert. Sub Rosa present a reissue of volume one (Mindanoo Mistiru) and two (Gold From Wax) of Ethiopian Urban And Tribal Music, both originally released as two distinct LPs on Lyrichord in 1972. Mindanoo Mistiru and Gold From Wax were recorded by Ragnar Johnson. Ethiopia contains many diverse peoples and many styles of music. It was still an empire in July and August of 1971 when these recordings were made. Over 70 languages and 200 dialects are spoken in Ethio…
Net of Atoms
Net of Atoms is a new album by Otis Jordan, drawing closely from the previous two albums for Them There - Dodger Point (2020) and Restless Guests (2022) - Jordan delivers his most ambitious and well articulated full length work to date, perfectly rounding off a trio of releases for the label.