Folk & Traditional / Traditional

Irish based Syrian/Kurdish artist Mohammad Syfkhan’s debut album ‘I Am Kurdish’ shows his brand of ecstatic music which takes elements from Middle Eastern and North African music to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness.

** 2025 stock. ** Lost Sounds Of The Tao (Chinese Masters Of The Guqin In Historic Recordings) reveals the refined artistry of Lo Ka Ping, presenting rare archival performances that mirror the spiritual depth and cultural resonance of the guqin tradi…

In the remote villages of Vietnam's Central Highlands, a profound musical transformation is taking place. Traditional songs that have echoed through generations of the Jerai, Banhar, Ede, and Rongao ethnic groups now exist alongside new forms of expr…

This album bridges past and present through the voice and instruments of Maria Violenza and Luciano Turella, with the Irtumbranda project (formerly performing as the duo BrandaMaria), offering an intimate and visceral reinterpretation of Sicilian mus…

"Kizaki Ondo" is a folk song from Nitta Kizaki town in Gunma, north of Tokyo. Played annually by local performers at the Bon-Odori traditional summer dance festival, it features unabashed lyrics about prostitution along with a rhythmic drive sure to …

40girls by Ya Tosiba: Rooted in folk music’s storytelling spirit the album introduces a dynamic conversation between generational memory and progressive innovation. It is crafting a soundscape that feels feminine, elusive and powerfully transformativ…

"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 ne…

Julian Kytasty is celebrated around the world as a master of the bandura. This plucked-string instrument has become a symbol of Ukraine through its association with the deep tradition of the kobzari. On Songs of Truth: Music and Song from the Kobzar …

"Shinshunfu" exists at a crossroads, a form both distinctly Japanese and distinctly "other", a complex blend of folk strains that is deep with emotional resonance and hard to place even for aficionados of Japanese traditional music. "Of "Shinshunfu",…

"This was traditional, transformative music, and music that made so much sense coming from EM's epicenter."― Matt Werth  Printed on special paper embossed with matte silver aluminium foil. Please consider the jacket illustration as an image as the te…

"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 outsid…

Marewrew (pronounced: Ma-leoo-leoo / mɑleːul̯ eːu)̯ is a female vocal group that sings traditional Ainu songs. The music of the long-suppressed people from northern Japan has been a particular focus of Pingipung's output in recent years, together wit…

Zehra is proud to present the debut album Istehlal by the Mohamad Zatari Trio, consisting of musicians from Syria, Iran and India. The trio merges traditional Middle Eastern sounds with contemporary vibes incl. interpretations of Hossein Alizadeh and…

Teppana Jänis was born in the village of Uuksujärvi in Suistamo on 21 June 1850. After becoming blind in the late 19th century, he went house to house, supporting himself by playing the kantele, a traditional Finnish and Karelian plucked string instr…

Nyahh is honoured to be able to present this collection of airs to you from some of Ireland’s best fiddlers.

A lost classic of the Ethiopian Golden Age, reissued in full for the first time! On this 1976 gem of a record, Aselefech Ashine and Getenesh Kebret’s voices intertwine in close harmony, the two “beauties” singing in duet across 10 gorgeous tracks. Th…

*2025 stock* Born in 1945, Guo Yongzhang has performed zhuizi, a traditional Chinese style of narrative singing, for half a century. An artform whose history spans over a century, zhuizi originated in Henan province. Its main musical instruments are …

A long-time best-seller of the MEG-AIMP collection and long out of print, this album of sanza music recorded among the Gbaya people of the Central African Republic by ethnomusicologist Vincent Dehoux was originally released on CD in 1993. It is now b…

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…

*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…

*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, …

*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…

*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…

*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…

*2024 stock* «Asguèbba!» is the Azmari’s cry urging listeners to enter into the dance, an invitation carrying the same sexual innuendo as Latino’s ¡Va dentro! The recordings on this CD are intended as a continuation of those in Tètchawèt! (Ethiopique…

*2024 stock* «An authentic legend in Ethiopia, Mahmoud Ahmed has laid down the basis of a music style which is resolutely original in the way it synthesizes the most diverse influences into a language both typical and universal. With his haunting, se…

*2024 stock* Russ Gershon and his Grammy-nominated Either/Orchestra have included many Ethiopian pieces into their repertoire in recent years. In January 2004, the Boston big band travelled to Addis for a dream-come-true concert featuring prestigious…

*2024 stock* Alèmayèhu Eshèté is no less than one of the great voices of the heyday of modern Ethiopian music -- the Swinging Sixties which, in Ethiopia, went on until the fall of the Emperor Haile Sellassie I in 1974. On a par with Tlahoun Gèssèssè,…

*2024 stock* As was the case with Ethiopiques 1 and 3, this 24th CD in the Ethiopiques collection presents a selection of powerful pieces from the historical Amha Records catalogue. We meet again with such artists as Ayaléw Mèsfin, Gétatchèw Kassa an…

*2024 stock* For a long time downplayed and deprived of any recognition whatsoever, oromo music is one of the liveliest Ethiopian musical traditions. This 28th volume of Ethiopique pays tribute to Ali Birra, the man in whom Oromo music has irrepressi…

*2024 stock* Kassa (1927-1973) belongs to the long tradition of melancholy raconteurs with a decided gift of gab. The unique embrace of his deep voice heightens the emotion generated by the hum of his lyrics. For Ethiopians he is, along with such oth…

*2023 stock* These are live recordings of Nikhil Banerjee at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California, on the 9th of July, 1967. It is for the first time they are made into vinyl record and published in China. The original recordings were on two reel-to-re…

*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* Fascinating and highly attractive project which returns the music of Gurdjieff (c. 1866 – 1949) to its ethnic inspirational sources. To date Gurdjieff’s compositions have largely been studied, in the West, via the piano…

*85 copies limited edition* Rooted deeply in traditional Sakha music Aldana Duoraan creates a meditational state of mind using an instrument called “khomus” and her voice. The second album of Prague based musician born in Sakha republic is a two-side…

Big Tip! New Torso!  Gloriously mature and engrossing movements for cello, flute and tape self-released from the Japanese duo on their Ozato label. It’s hard to write anything about Torso’s music without giving the impression that this is polite, nic…

Imaginative re-workings and improvisations by Andrew Tuttle of the late great Michael Chapman's unfinished instrumental album. Sonic explorations that bridge the Southern and Northern Hemisphere via the Caribbean, remote Northumberland and sub-tropic…

Wapna'kik (The People of the Dawn) by Mi'kmaw musical group Sons of Membertou foregrounds the powerful voices of their people. First released in 1995, Wapna'kik documents a vital resurgence of the Membertou community’s music practices. The 2025 updat…

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, t…

*300 copies limited edition* Slavic Folk Songs is a collection of songs and sacred chants from diverse Slavic regions, based on oral traditions and melodies often without authors or composers, with a special emphasis on Ukrainian songs. The songs hav…

Born in 1989 in Bamako, Mali, Nfaly Diakité is a member of the Donsow, Bambara animist hunters. Nfaly Diakité is named after his grandfather, the late Nfaly Diakité, one of Mali’s most respected donso chiefs. His grandfather did not play, but as a le…