★Folkways Records
Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2
**New vinyl reissue remastered from the original 1982 master tapes, packaged in classic Folkways-style tip-on jackets with liner notes.** The sonorous drift of four trombones, like gentle waves lapping at the edge of a celestial shoreline, opens Craig Kupka’s second album for Folkways, Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2. Featuring two side-long compositions for trombone and synthesizer, the album is intended as an aid for meditation, a guided journey inward towards self-discovery.Before its or…
Tuareg Music of the Southern Sahara
**New vinyl reissue remastered from the original 1970s master tapes, packaged in classic Folkways-style tip-on jackets with original liner notes.** In the 21st century, the music of the Tuareg people, a diverse group spread across the Sahara encompassing Mali, Niger, and beyond, has reached an unprecedented international audience. Groups including Bombino, Mdou Moctar, Tinariwen, and Les Filles de Illighadad have incorporated the mesmerizing, repetitious qualities of the region’s folk music into…
Gambian Griot Kora Duets
**New vinyl reissue remastered from the original 1970s master tapes, packaged in classic Folkways-style tip-on jackets with original liner notes.** The hypnotic, delicate sound of the kora, the harp-like instrument strung on a halved gourd, has been a trademark of West African music for centuries. Gambian Griot Kora Duets (1979), featuring the master player Alhaji Bai Konte and his equally influential son Dembo Konte and Ma Lamini Jobate, is a remarkable recording that documents an evolution in …
Entourage
Formed in Baltimore, MD in the early 70s, The Entourage Music And Theatre Ensemble played a kind of experimental, ambient, new age, proto-world music, made to accompany multi-media performance art pieces. This is the first of two albums they released on Folkways, reissued lovingly on vinyl in an exact replica of the original jacket and booklet. Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble uses saxophone, keyboards, percussion, viola, recorder, guitar, drums and thumb piano to explore an"experimental-spi…
At The Helm
East New York Ensemble de Music came out of the diverse community of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, where African, West Indian & black American cultures converged. First and foremost a deep Spiritual Jazz record, At The Helm also incorporates elements of the West Indies, and both the Near and Far East. Originally issued in a very small pressing by Folkway Records in 1974, at a time when the label was doing some great underground recordings! The sound is loose and free – spiritually building in a man…
Gamelan in the New World
Original 1978 Folkways pressing that introduces fluxus pioneer Philip Corner, together with experimental electronics figure Daniel Goode(he later had also a great release on Tzadik), Barbara Benary. The artists use the Java instruments and combine it with avant-garde aesthetics, creating their own instruments(like Harry Partch/Bertoia). Their music can be described as indeterminate / atonal / procedural / minimalist. Comes with original 12-page booklet which lies in mint condition!! Justly put i…
Electronic music from razor blades to Moog
Director of the Rio Grande Electronic Music Laboratory, J.D. Robb traces the evolution of electronic music using examples of his own work. Newer instruments and techniques—or improvements on older ones—offered both advantages and limitations; he describes them in detail in the notes. The recording includes eleven tracks.