Toumani Diabaté ‎– Djelika

 Playful and relaxing African music by Toumani Diabate on the harp-like kora, accompanied by Keletigui Diabate on the balafon xylophone and Basekou Kouyate on ngoni, another traditional tring instrument. 1995 cd on Hannibal Records.

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Various ‎– Spiritual Jazz 5 - Esoteric, Modal And Deep Jazz From Around The World 1961-79

The fifth installment of the Spiritual Jazz series features progressive jazz from all around the world, from countries such Israel, Turkey, Jamaica and Argentina. My favorite tracks are the Indian Louiz Banks's heavy funky raga jazz, Oladepo Ogomodede's gritty cover of Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," and Hideo Shiraki's koto-and-flute based dark, subdue jazz. 2014 cd on Jazzman/Spiritual Jazz.

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Stephan Micus - Desert Poems

I think this is one of the most overlooked Micus albums. It doesn't have the epic quality of say Ocean or the experimental edge of The Music of Stones, neither the devotional loneliness of Athos, but still it's a noteworthy album. For one, it contains one of the most beautiful short tracks he's ever written, "Adela," another track with mourning violins that's great, "Shen Khar Venakhi," a great love song with an a-cappella delivery, "Contessa Entelina," and a lonely shakuhachi hymn, "For Yukand generally it's a diverse album with both classical music elements and a lot of African percussion moments that are cool and relaxing. 2001 cd on ECM.


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Stephan Micus - Till The End Of Time

OMG look at how young and virile Stephan Micus looks here bro! Even his voice is less raspy and softer. This is the last album outside of ECM and it's a short but gorgeous album, dominated by table harps and zithers that provide that trademark sacred quality of his music. What is surprising is the extensive use of classical guitar, which is very rarely heard in his music, perhaps only as its Spanish variations. Thereby this album has a more traditionally folk and "European" than the majority of his oeuvre. First released in 1978 on Japo Records, this is the 2001 ECM cd reissue.

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Roberto Musci - The Loa of Music (The Complete Sessions)

I consider this one of the most accomplished releases of all time. Released in 1984 after years traveling Africa, India and Southeast Asia assembling field recordings and instruments, Roberto Musci created one of the most ambitious ambient records - and think that this was recorded in the early 80s, without the technological conveniences of today. This is a combination of field recordings of traditional songs and choirs from Africa and Asia documenting Voodoo cultures, Indian raga, percussions, and ritual dark ambient, creating a deeply hypnotic and immersive vibe. Listening to this I am tempted to say that SPK must have been hugely influenced by this album when they recorded Zamia Lehmanni, which is another summit of 1980's ambient (some windy/screeching and percussive samples from "Invocation" and "Palms Crossed In Sorrow" sound suspiciously similar to stuff from here). So, The Loa of Music was released in 1984 but due to space constraints, not all of the recordings had been released. After 33 years, Soave re-released it in 2017 as a double vinyl including in full all of the material created by Musci, so here's one hour and twenty minutes of perfection.

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Lalo: Greek Echoes - Himalayas - Hindukush

As all nations have their stupid myths creating a sense of imagined community and national pride, so do the Greeks, from what I learned when I lived there. One legend says that Alexander the Great, that source of Greek national pride for imperialism and expansionism, left behind his seed in the Central/South-East Asian margin of his large empire. As his kingdom reached the north-western part of greater India, in what is now the Punjab region of Pakistan, he had the idea of posing as a benign ruler, not destroying his subjects' cultures and faiths, but trying to intermingle them with Greek traits and customs. So, as the story goes, the Kalash people of the Chitral region of North-Western Pakistan, an Indo-Iranian ethnic group practicing some form of Ancient Hinduism that is considered a pagan/infidel minority and has faced persecution by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, are supposedly the descendants of Alexander's soldiers, as they had refused to go further into India and chose to stay back and settle. Of course, genetic study shows that no such relation exists, but nationalism is nationalism and is impervious to scientific proof.

So, this very rare cd is part of an ethnomusicological study conducted in the early 1990s by some guy called Yiannis Manolidakis, who traveled to Himachal Pradesh state of north India, Nuristan in North-East Afghanistan and the Chitral region of Kalash, trying to find some cultural association between those peoples and ancient Greece. In the liner notes, which you can read in full here, he claims that there are similarities between their dances and traditional Greek ones, as well as linguistic likeness. Well, I have no idea about this, and to be honest, I think this research has a nationalist standpoint to it, but a documentation of musical traditions of the peoples of regions which have been plagued with wars and religious persecution is something that should be retained. The tracks included are live performances of songs, dances and instrumentals, mainly with vocals, reeds and percussion, and some of them possess a strong war-like feel (such as "Women's Dance") or an ecstatic mood and a drone-y aspect in the vocal delivery. 1993 cd on Evmousia.

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V/A - Kazbek: Field Recordings From The Caucasus 2012 - 2014

 

Sublime collection of field recordings of artists from the areas of Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Abkhazia, and Turkey) recorded by Ben Wheeler, Bulat Khalilov, Timur Kodzoko and Stefan Williamson Fa as part of the Sayat Nova Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Caucasian music and its ethnomusicological study. This is an accompaniment to the 2013 lp Mountains of Tongues. Each side of the double-tape set features different aspects of this musical tradition: Side A is songs and music ensembles playing uplifting and epic/heroic songs, side B is singers and choirs, side C is wind and reed instruments, and side D is string instruments. There are also some conversations and sounds from villages, giving this a definite Alan Lomax vibe. I can't recommend highly enough that everyone listen to this. Originally released on Winebox Press on a very limited tape run, this is the 2016 re-release on Winebox Press's sublabel Early Music.

Side A
Side B
Side C
Side D