Folk /
Night Spirit Masters
Remastered vinyl reissue of this 1990 Bill Laswell / Richard Horowitz production of local Gnawa musicians, recorded in the Medina of Marrakesh. According to Allmusic.com "a must for fans of both African and Middle Eastern music” and voted one of the "10 essential Gnawa albums” by Songlines. The Gnawa are an ethnic minorityin today’s Morocco, descendents of slaves from West Africa who were brought to Morocco in the 16th century and who (although they quickly converted to Islam) nevertheless broug…
Het Vuil Volkske
Ghent-based wanderer Benoit Monsieurs has been exploring the many routes paved by the primitive folk guitarists of legend and is now carving out his own path as Venediktos Tempelboom. These seven tracks straddle the Eastern and Western codes that so infused the hazy Americana pioneered by the John Faheys and the Robbie Bashos of this earth, with the always-haunting Flemish landscape unmistakably lining the contours.
Living Legend Of The Ayacucho Guitar
*In process of stocking. 100 copies limited edition* Gustavo Yashimura-Arce comes from humble origins in the Ayacucho region of the Peruvian Andes. He started playing guitar in 1987 and 2 years later he travelled to Montevideo in Uruguay to study music at La Casa de la Guitarra. After spending some years playing classical guitar in Japan, Gustavo returned to Peru in 2004 and began his intense studies of the Andean guitar styles of the Ayacucho region. Later, in 2008 he found the perfect teacher …
Sophisticated Beggar
*2022 stock* This is where it all began, with a slim volume of poems and psychedelic ditties set to music, backed by a simple Revox machine, and transformed by instrumental turns that display British cult hero Roy Harper's deft guitar work. "Girlie," "Big Fat Aeroplane," and "Legend," while steeped in traditional folk idioms, show hints of Harper's unique songwriting style. His caustic wit and passion are already evident in the wordplay of this 1966 debut. "Forever" is as pretty a love song as y…
Folkjokeopus
*2022 stock* 'This Shel Talmy-produced album is as sprawling and unwieldy as its title. Always a determined eclectic, Harper tries to cover a lot of ground here, and his effort is impressive. The influences of Bob Dylan, Bert Jansch, Donovan, and maybe even early Al Stewart hover over most of this folk-rock. Harper tries to cram too many musical and (especially) lyrical ideas together here, and several of his heart-on-the-sleeve narrative folktales ramble on for too long, with an obscurity that …
Chico Bernardes
Chico Bernardes is a singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist from São Paulo, Brazil. In his first and self-titled record, 'Chico Bernardes' has arranged and recorded all the instruments, with the support of Gui Jesus Toledo from Selo Risco and owner of Estúdio Canoa, where the recordings took place. Surrounded by lots of coffee and low lights, Chico recorded part of the songs as if he was singing for nobody, in real time. The other half of the record was filled with drums, bass, electric gu…
Ma Délire — Songs Of Love, Lost & Found
* US Import from Feeding Tube * Myriam Gendron Ma Délire - Songs of Love Lost & Found It has been a while since the release Myriam's acclaimed 2014 debut album, Not So Deep As a Well. The intervening years have brought a smattering of live performances, a bouquet of children, Trump's Pandemic, and much more. For someone who likes to read and ponder as much as Ms. Gendron does, there has been plenty to mull over. Different concepts for a new album were broached, but the seed of Ma Delire was pla…
Ahir Bhairav (2LP)
* Edition of 300 * Mohi Bahauddin Dagar is the heir to one of the most important families of musicians in the Indian Hindustani tradition: Dagar family. During the XX century, his father, the famous Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, was mainly responsible for the revival of the Rudra Veena as a solo concert instrument. The stylistic evolution of the Rudra also involved a substantial modification of its parts by Zia Mohiuddin. In fact, the tumbas (gourds) and dhandhi (hollow neck) were enlarged to crea…
Exploring Gongs Culture In Southeast Asia, Mainland And Archipelago
Tip! *In process of stocking* 'Gongs have played an integral role in the mythogeography of Asia. This is not music that aligns with national borders or ideas of homogenous populations, let alone racial stereotypes and exotic clichés. What connects all of these tracks is a simultaneous feeling of entrancement and social cohesion. Communal and collaborative, its form is hypnotically repetitious, melodies and rhythms spread out among the players using the technique of hocketing in which a flowing l…
Compulsions
*200 copies limited edition* 'The isolation of lockdown was challenging for guitarist J.R. Bohannon. In refreshingly vulnerable linear notes, he describes how his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were made worse by the pandemic. But he accommodated by creating Compulsions, a set of solo acoustic guitar improvisations in an American folk style, each recorded during a panic attack.
These slow and melancholy pieces have compelling melodies, which Bohannon used to calm himself. He …
A Cloudy Dawn
Death is Not the End follow up 'The Sun is Setting on the World' with another set of Greek rebetika from the 1930s to the late 1950s.
Kazuki Tomokawa 1975–1977
Tip! A poet, soothsayer, bicycle race tipster, actor, prolific drinker, self-taught guitarist, and living legend of Japanese sound, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-folk scene in the mid-1970s, forging a sound and sensibility marked by throat-wrenching vocals and searing ennui. Among his musical peers in postwar Japan, Tomokawa distinguished himself as a pioneer of radical individualism. He had “the personality of a hydrogen bomb”—as the notorious ultraleft band the Brain Police on…
Finally, His First Album
Tip! At the tender age of twenty-five, while he was working part-time at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo’s Kamata district, Kazuki Tomokawa released his debut record, fittingly titled Finally, His First Album. While he had already penned hundreds of songs, including his first single “Try Saying You’re Alive!,” written on a long train ride past fields and rice paddies, it was this recording that introduced Japan to one of its most unique musicians of the postwar era. Each track, as record label …
Straight from the Throat
Tip! In the 1970s, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-garde scene with his cathartic and utterly electrifying performances. Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa’s second album, released in July 1976 by Harvest Records, finds the musician in his truest form: as the “screaming philosopher” he would come to be called—cynical but fair, cheeky and melancholic, and looking at the world with truth-seeking eyes.
In Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa shrieks and shouts and wallows with ritualis…
A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth
Tip! In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualism, with a sound marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, released by Harvest Records in 1977, Tomokawa creeps “ever more inward,” as Kiichi Takahara writes in the record’s original introductory text—embracing an attitude pervasive amongst musicians of the time who interrogated the prosaic…
The Music Of Islām
Ten years in the making, The Music of Islam series recorded in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran and Qatar represents the most comprehensive sound documentation available to Westerners today, of a world religion dating back to 1/622. Although governed by strict rules for fourteen centuries, contact with other cultures has radically affected Islamic music throughout history. As the world enters the XV/21st century the timing of this collection serves an even larger…
Mayeh-ye Dashti / Mayeh-ye Isfahan
*2022 stock.* The award-winning 2-CD album features contemporary classical compositions and arrangements with traditional Irani instruments. The spiritual intensity and traditional musicianship was deemed worthy for Celestial Harmonies records. The musicians are the Dastan Ensemble, which is a collective who change membership over the decades. For this 2008 live concert recording, the Ensemble consists of Hossein Behroozinia (barbat, the Irani oud), Hamid Motebassem (the long-neck tar), Said Far…
The Music Of Bali
The Music of Bali is produced by the highly acclaimed New Zealand composer/musician/producer David Parsons. Much like the other traditional/lost arts replications he has produced, The Music of Cambodia (19902), The Music of Vietnam (19903) and The Music of Armenia (19909), this collection is an opened time capsule of music from the isles of paradise.
Jegog as heard on The Music of Bali, Volume One: Jegog (13136) is played predominantly for entertainment although it occasionally accompanies relig…
The Music Of Vietnam
*2022 stock. In process of stocking* A country shaped by struggles with Chinese, French, Japanese and American invasions. That is how Vietnam stands in the minds of many, while its culture most people actually know little about. It is a rich culture, whose musical heritage has developed over a thousand years' time. Celestial Harmonies, early in 1994, released the first two volumes of The Music of Vietnam series in order to bring this beautiful, fascinating music to the world at large.
It is unde…
The Music Of Cambodia
*2022 stock.* Celestial Harmonies' Music of Cambodia box set collects three volumes of traditional Cambodian songs as performed by indigenous orchestras and musicians. The Pinpeat Orchestra's "Sathouka," the Trot Orchestra's "Somplov," Taam Ming's "Klang Chanat," and the Mahori Orchestra's "Trorpean Piey" are some of the collection's highlights, all capturing the mysterious, hypnotic sounds of Cambodia.