Folk 193 Items

Ltd to 500 copies, no repress.

The sought after LP from Zann ‘Strange Ways / Inside Jungle’ originally released as a private press in 1990 finally receives a full reissue.

Zann started life as a 7-member live band in 1982. Founder member Udo Winkler had been a part of New Wave & Post Punk band Konec touring extensively and releasing one LP on Polydor titled ‘Schrille Blitze’. Zann was an outlet for more experimental works heavily influenced by Brian Eno's collaborations with David Byrne and Jon Hassell, German bands like Embryo and Dissidenten, David Sylvian and middle & far eastern music.

In 1988 Udo and Hjalmer Karthaus built a small basement studio with a 4 track tape machine and musical experiments began in earnest. After the limitations of playing live it was an acoustic wonderland and they gave themselves no musical boundaries. The unlimited studio time meant they could pick up ideas and develop pieces gradually, friends would come to the studio to play and songs evolved from extensive jamming sessions. The resulting LP has Middle Eastern instrumentation at its core, particularly wind & string instruments such as the Tabla and Gong, and is a melting pot of influences incorporating elements of Ambient, Jazz and Folk with strong synth programming on a number of tracks. The band pressed up a handful of copies and sold them exclusively at record fairs in Germany and in the intervening years the LP has become highly sought after with copies changing hands for 150 Euros.

The LP has been fully remastered from the original DAT tapes with new full sleeve artwork from Bradley Pinkerton and is pressed on 180 Gram Vinyl.

A collection of 12 fantastic taarab songs from Yaseen Mohammed (Mac & Party) rich in exotic tone colour, full of swing and groove, compiled from the elusive Mzuri catalogue, Mombasa, Kenya 1960’s. Comes with with a large 4 page fold-out insert with extensive background story and never-before-seen pictures.

Archival reissue of the Afro-prog-psych Zamrock masterpiece Presented For The First Time Ever In An Aged Copper Green Pressing The entirety of WITCH’s fourth album, restored and remastered from master tapes, and presented as an archival reissue in an aged copper green vinyl pressing. WITCH’s musical arc is contained to a five year span and, in retrospect, it is a logical one. The band’s fourth album - recorded after the band toured with Osibisa - makes use of traditional Zambian rhythms and folk melodies alongside progressive rock movements. It is the most "afro-rock" of WITCH’s oeuvre.

Talk about a talented family: Willie Nelson and his Sister Bobbie Nelson each achieved massive success in country music. Even in their late 80’s, the Nelsons continue to make music and their influence can be heard through many artists in the genre. December Day, Willie’s Stash Vol. 1 is a collaboration album between the two, and upon release in 2014 it was met with positive reviews from music critics. The album spawned three singles: “Who’ll Buy My Memories”, “Laws of Nature” and “Summer of Roses / December Day”. The liner notes were written by Willie’s frequent collaborator Mickey Raphael. This record comes as a limited edition on snowy white vinyl.

The Time For Peace Is Now compiles fourteen songs that, while recorded over four decades ago, speak now more than ever. These are undeniably soulful, passionate, and urgent songs from obscure 45s, dug up from a long dormancy in attics, sheds and rated across the American south. Compiled by Gospel guru Greg Belson. The second volume in Luaka Bop's World Spiritual Classics Series.

The fantastic soundtrack of the new Tarantino comes in a double gatefold sleeve with inlay and poster.

A phenomenal soundtrack to a phenomenal movie. Tarantino once again proves that he not only has a great taste when it comes to music, but he also takes a good amount of time to dig through record collections to pick gems for his soundtracks and arrange the 22 songs 9 era-specific radio advertisements.
This should become a movie soundtrack classic.

2016 Grammys Best Historical Album Nominee
34 tracks newly re-mastered
Deluxe 3xLP set includes 60-page book housed in a “Tip-On” slipcase with three “Tip-On” jackets
Both 2xCD and 3xLP editions include comprehensive liner notes, artist interviews, unseen archival photos, and lyrics (with translations)
Vinyl pressed at RTI
Liner notes by Kevin “Sipreano” Howes

Largely unheard, criminally undocumented, but at their core, utterly revolutionary, the recordings of the diverse North American Aboriginal community will finally take their rightful place in our collective history in the form of Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985. An anthology of music that was once near-extinct and off-the-grid is now available for all to hear, in what is, without a doubt, Light In The Attic’s most ambitious and historically significant project in the label’s 12-year journey.

Native North America (Vol. 1) features music from the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the northern United States, recorded in the turbulent decades between 1966 to 1985. It represents the fusion of shifting global popular culture and a reawakening of Aboriginal spirituality and expression. The majority of this material has been widely unavailable for decades, hindered by lack of distribution or industry support and by limited mass media coverage, until now. You’ll hear Arctic garage rock from the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, melancholy Yup’ik folk from Alaska, and hushed country blues from the Wagmatcook First Nation reserve in Nova Scotia. You’ll hear echoes of Neil Young, Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, and more among the songs, but injected with Native consciousness, storytelling, poetry, history, and ceremony.

The stories behind the music presented on Native North America (Vol. 1) range from standard rock-and-roll dreams to transcendental epiphanies. They have been collected with love and respect by Vancouver-based record archaeologist and curator Kevin “Sipreano” Howes in a 15-year quest to unearth the history that falls between the notes of this unique music. Tirelessly, Howes scoured obscure, remote areas for the original vinyl recordings and the artists who made them, going so far as to send messages in Inuktitut over community radio airwaves in hopes that these lost cultural heroes would resurface.

With cooperation and guidance from the artists, producers, family members, and behind the scenes players, Native North America (Vol. 1) sheds real light on the painful struggles and deep traditions of the greater Indigenous community and the significance of its music. The songs speak of joy and spirituality, but also tell of real tragedy and strife, like that of Algonquin/Mohawk artist Willy Mitchell, whose music career was sparked by a bullet to the head from the gun of a trigger-happy police officer, or those of Inuk singer-songwriter Willie Thrasher, who was robbed of his family and traditional Inuit culture by the residential school system.

Considering the financially motivated destruction of our environment, the conservative political landscape, and corporate bottom-line dominance, it’s bittersweet to report that the revolutionary songs featured on Native North America hold as much meaning today as when they were originally recorded. Dedicated to legendary Métis singer-songwriter and poet Willie Dunn, featured on the anthology but who sadly passed away during its making, Native North America (Vol. 1) is only the beginning. A companion set featuring a crucial selection of folk, rock, and country from the United States’ Lower 48 and Mexico is currently in production.

A collection of beautiful Country-Western inspired music from 1950s Zimbabwe, South Africa and Kenya. Fingerpicking "omasiganda" troubadours, train car yodels, raw slide guitar, and haunting travel-weary ballads, all reissued for the first time from rare 78s. A heavy duty document of a nearly lost scene, and all the songs are all stunners to boot. Featuring George Sibanda, Josaya Hadebe, Sabelo Mathe, Petrus Mntambo and more, with a 12" booklet of deep research and full lyrics, packaged in old school tip-on covers. Co-released by our friends Olvido Records (A. Kostis, The White Birds, George Mukabi). Audio restoration and transfers by Michael Kieffer.

Trey Gruber's posthumous debut double LP Herculean House of Cards. A compilation of early demos, studio demos, and live recordings. A tortured songwriter and struggling addict who jolted the tired Chicago DIY scene with his own brand of primal despair, Trey Gruber and his band Parent were on track to join the ranks of Twin Peaks, Mild High Club, and Whitney. His death in 2017 at the age of 26 brought it all to a halt. In his final years Trey wrote and recorded hundreds of previously unheard demos, dandelions in the cracked concrete of 21st century disconnect, an alphabet's worth of which have been compiled by his family and friends for his only album: Herculean House Of Cards. The 26-song 2xLP covers years of material, from home tape recordings, sessions at Mathew Roberts (Mild High Club) & Paul Cherry's home studio, to a studio session with Charles Glanders (Whitney) at Chicago's Foxhall Studios, along with audio taken at The Hideout during his last live performance, among others. Though Gruber was an unrelenting perfectionist who was constantly self-deprecating about his best demos, Herculean House of Cards is a wholly comprehensive and accurate reflection of his infectious charisma and raw songwriting. He had a charmingly distinct way with words but also could be disarmingly vulnerable. Like he was in life, Gruber never shied away from being open with his struggles with alcoholism and addiction. On the vivid opener "Eisenhower to the West Side," he sings in painstaking detail of, "A jail-skin cell, a junkies fight/Corner-boys full of grace/And Jesus Christ full of spite." He told then-future bandmate flautist Rebecca Ridge, "It's not some Lou Reed glorification of drugs _ `makes me feel like a man'_ I talk about the disconnect and the ugliness. They're sad pop songs." But even with the pain and the darkness in his lyrics, Gruber's songs had an unmistakable sense of hope and catharsis.

Comes in large format duo-case with 60 page booklet. Osharaku is a traditional Japanese form of musical entertainment, featuring mainly voice, shamisen and percussion, with a repertoire of folk and popular songs, performed by farmers and fishermen for local audiences. This compilation, 28 tracks compiled by Riyo Mountains, is the fourth release in the EM Records/Riyo Mountains Japanese folk series. These recordings feature legendary Osharaku masters, recorded in their homes, brilliantly capturing the casual warmth and vitality characteristic of the style. Osharaku is unique in its use of shamisen, originally an “uptown” urban instrument, in a “downtown” non-urban setting. These joyous tracks, all recorded in the 1960s and 70s, are available as a 2CD set or a single 12” vinyl LP, with English translations and rare photos. Cover art by Shinsuke Takagi (Soi48).

Riyo Mountains are a Japanese folk song research team formed by Mood Yama and Takumi Saito. They are resident DJs at the renowned party "Soi48" at Be-Wave, Tokyo, featuring music from all over the world. They produced the Japanese folk song mix-CD series entitled "Riyo Mountains Mix" and also direct the reissue series of Japanese folk music on EM Records, including the releases "Yumi-kagura", "Sakai Ishinage Odori”, and "Kizaki Ondo”. Riyo Mountains have appeared as DJs at many events/programs including NTS (London) and Japanese Bon-Odori traditional dance festivals. Their articles about Japanese folk music are now published serially in the Japanese web magazine “boid".

In early November 2014 we went to Kalmykia. Our goal was the local “Dzhangar” epic. The epic genre, as one of the most archaic, can be called a basis for Kalmyk music culture. Not so long time ago among Kalmyks there were their own professional epic storytellers - Dzhangarchi who as a socio-artistic institute today are practically absent: repertoire of modern folk singers mostly consists of late folk art of the Soviet era.

2023 marks the twenty-eighth year of Suarasama; it is also the first year for this reissue of their 2013 masterpiece, Timeline. Irwansyah Harahap and Rithaony Hutajulu, Ethnomusicology lecturers at University of Sumatera Utara, founded Suarasama in 1995 after graduating from the University of Washington Ethnomusicology program. Their music, as expressed on both Timeline and Fajar Di Atas Awan (first issued in 1998, reissued by Drag City in 2008) is hypnotic and joyful; progressing ancient North Sumatran music concepts while referencing the music of adjacent ethnic traditions. "Dukkha," for example, was written combining Mandailing and Eastern European musical inspirations. Playing this song on African jembe, Indian sruti box and a European lute known as the mandolin, Suarasama instigate a musical synesthesia in the listener that may honestly earn and truly deserve the title of "world music." Throughout Timeline, this is largely due to Irwansyah Harahap"s master playing on a variety of stringed instruments including acoustic guitars, Malaysian gambus, mandolin, and an invention of his own design, the saz-guitar. Suarasama"s spirit and intention is further elevated by Rithaony Hutajulu"s vocals, as well as the skilled rhythm playing of Muhammad Amin and Horas Panjaitan, with additional percussion and singing from several others. The sound of Suarasama is the sound of people engaged in a deeply spiritual, constantly moving recital in open space. Suarasama"s conception of Timeline was a multifaceted one from the start. It grew from the concept of hemiola, a metric rhythmic structure involving the juxtaposition of a 2-beat time signature upon 3-beat time within the same line. The song "Timeline" itself addresses the history of musical lutes around the world as a means of debuting their custom-made lute, the aforementioned saz-guitar. Finally and perhaps most significantly, a "timeline" charts the passage of time, and therefore references Suarasama"s musical path over the years of their existence. This is especially significant since founder and leader Irwansyah Harahap passed away in 2021 at the age of 60. As difficult as this loss is for his family, friends and fans alike, the reissue of Timeline is seen as a celebration of the vitality and importance of his music career and journey.

Why you'll love it...
High Top Mountain certainly leaned traditional, but it also set the precedent that Simpson was not an artist content to coast, was not someone just trying to write the easiest song to ride to the top. He was willing to put in the work, and hire $25,000 worth of studio time and band members to make his vision a reality, and didn’t very much care what happened next. Only that he’d done it. Freedom, as a famous country singer once wrote for Janis Joplin, is just another word for nothing left to lose. The most free performer we’ve had these last 10 years is Simpson, who took a trip to High Top Mountain and never came back down.

- Steve Gunn's first album with a band, featuring John Truscinski and Justin Tripp- His most affecting, accessible, and articulate work of pure songcraft to date, with a new emphasis on vocals- Available on virgin vinyl, in a deluxe, limited edition, as well as on CD and digital formats- Vinyl edition features matte, tip-on jacket, full-color inner sleeve, and digital download coupon- CD housed in heavy matte gatefold wallet- Package features artwork by Anthony Campuzano, Constance Mensh, and Justin TrippIn the city we're all angling for Quittin' Time, laboring along and among the hours, searching and scheming for the sweet sound of those two easy words: Time Off. It's something you take-or sometimes steal, like a thief or a baserunner-but seems you can never get enough of it. It's regulated, rationed, and billed by volume, like water or electricity or ice cream. Sometimes you have to beg the boss for more, or even for a trifling taste. So let's make time! Let's roll the dice and get these old bones out on the road again. Steve Gunn's new album imagines the fugitive moments afforded us during time off, out, and away as occasions for dilatory investigations into our immediate environments and interiors. Time Off (PoB-08) showcases the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter's oblique character sketches and story-songs, some of which, like "Lurker" and "Street Keeper," portray specific denizens of his Brooklyn neighborhood. "Old Strange" celebrates Jack Rose, a dear and departed friend and muse. Those contemplative studies frame Gunn's most affecting, accessible and articulate work of pure songcraft to date. His definitive statement as a songwriter, Time Off represents the culmination of nearly fifteen years of stylistic experimentation as a solo artist, a member of GHQ and the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, and more recently, as a guitarist in fellow Philadelphia-bred troubadour Kurt Vile's touring band the Violators. Gunn's first eponymous album with a full band, Time Off harnesses a core trio format to...

Who Corrupted Our Wave, Back in 1969? is composed of tracks recorded live during a Sunday confusion at Berlin’s Klunkerkranich. Aimed at transferring the dub-laden substance of their debut at Fusion Festival, one week earlier, this sunset-session is a drive through dense traffic in psychonautic space. Hypersonic textures arise from layers of transmutative dialogues between seven instrumentalists. These musicians have gathered in the exiled Spiritczualic Enhancement Center, geared towards spontaneous pre-temporal alignment. A collective channeling of Free Beat sonic-organisms born from the ether, “Who Corrupted Our Wave, Back In 1969?” is a b-rave album producing an inter-era entanglement, empowered by the portals of a caravan traveling outside of time.
" If Woodstock had happened in an alien, technological advanced universe, this is probably how it would have sounded like but we might’ve never got to experience it. Fortunately, it was recorded this year in Berlin by seven illuminated musicians that created a timeless dialogue of textures, grooves and beats, which you can use as a post-hippie spaceship to take you wherever the fuck you want."
Gabriel Leașcu - The Attic
Downloadcode + sticker included.

Contains 12 live recordings including tracks like "Das Neue", "Citylights Forever", "LikeLikeLike" and much more! This deluxe set comes in a gatefold sleeve plus CD added!

Dive into the spiritual depths of Carnatic Music(Southern Indian classical music) - An enchanting journey of devotion and transcendence pulsates with raw sincerity and profound spirituality, casting a spell that transcends boundaries of belief.

2024 new vinyl repress with different track list on the side B

Reverse Cut Vinyl

This record plays from the inner groove to the outer groove.

comes with hype sticker.

After «Many Things», released in 2008, and «From Africa With Fury: Rise» in 2011, «A Long Way To The Beginning» is the third album by Seun Anikulapo Kuti with Egypt 80

Why you'll love it...
Much of Montevallo was deceptive in its simplicity, hiding era-defining songwriting talent and a whole new mode of country crossover behind a seemingly easy-to-replicate formula of marrying traditional country instruments with programmed beats and slick, dynamic melodies. Its velvet revolution won Hunt years of radio dominance and anticipated a tidal wave of what’s been termed “boyfriend country” — legions of imitators who took the singer’s gently flirtatious tack and R&B influences to their cloying extremes. Plenty in Nashville didn’t see Montevallo as a changing of the guard, and even after he’d become a country megastar wrote him off as either a novelty, insufficiently capital-C Country, or both. When confronted with resistance about his own mode of widening country music’s lens Hunt has tended to return to the root of the issue, which runs much deeper than a simple disdain for pop music in country or concern about preserving some of its imagined “authentic” past.

A reissue full LP of the legendary Palm wine guitarist S.E. Rogie’s early work. Truly beautiful songs from the 1960s ranging from sweet acoustic solo numbers to blazing full band electric music. SE Rogie had a very long and pioneering career in Sierra Leone. His songs are some of the most beautiful ever—gentle and lilting timeless melodies. One of the greats. A co-release with our friends at the Domino Sound label.

Why you'll love it...
Richard Thompson's Music from Grizzly Man accompanies the acclaimed documentary, Grizzly Man, following the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a documentary filmmaker, environmentalist and bear enthusiast.

This VMP exclusive record is pressed on 1LP standard weight Smoke vinyl at Independent Record Pressing. This reissue is remastered by Bob Olhsson. Limited to 1,000 copies, Music from Grizzly Man will arrive in a foil stamped and numbered gatefold tip-on jacket.

Contemporary folk multi-instrumentalist Rachael Dadd is set to release her new album "Flux" on Memphis Industries on the 8th November 2019. Produced with Marcus Hamblett (Villagers / Laura Marling), "Flux" is a response to external and internal tides: the flow of life uprooted; a protest against the flow of recent political history and a diary of the flow within the intimate space of home.Collaborators include multi-instrumentalist Emma Gatrill (Willie Mason / Matthew and the Atlas), drummer Rob Pemberton (Emily Barker / Low Chimes), bassist Jim Barr (Portishead) and vocalists Kate Stables (This Is The Kit) and Rozi Plain.

Superb album revisiting the traditional and early psychedelic Arabic music, all through distorted paths and instruments, remashed and deconstructed sounds, recreating patterns with diverse instruments to give a different perspective of the sound itself.

"This collection of songs is about attachment, illusion, and acceptance. It is my attempt to take pieces from my past and use them kind of like patches of a quilt; weaving them together as an activity meant for distraction, but also for comfort and healing, and eventually, a transformation into something bigger than the sum of the parts. I imagined once it was done it could exist autonomously, and lift the weight from the lingering effects of the past. This exploration surrounds an ending relationship, the death of a loved one and a general feeling of disillusionment. Writing each song allowed me to accept myself and my emotions as valid; and recognize that pain is just as beautiful and important as the good stuff. It's a catalog of me, maybe messily, trying to figure out how to deal with certain new and overwhelming emotions, and learning how to be okay with letting things go." - Pearla

Cauthen first earned his reputation as a fire-breathing truth teller with the acclaimed roots rock band Sons of Fathers, but it wasn’t until the 2016 release of his solo debut, ‘My Gospel,’ that he truly tapped into the full depth of his prodigious talents. Rolling Stone called the album “a triple-barreled blast of Texas country, soul and holy-roller rockabilly delivered by a big-voiced crooner,” while Vice Noisey dubbed it “a somber reminder of how lucky we are to be alive,” and Texas Monthly raved that Cauthen “sound[s] like the Highwaymen all rolled into one: he’s got Willie’s phrasing, Johnny’s haggard quiver, Kristofferson’s knack for storytelling, and Waylon’s baritone.” The album landed on a slew of Best Of lists at the year’s end and earned Cauthen dates with Elle King, Margo Price, Billy Joe Shaver, and Cody Jinks, along with festival appearances from Austin City Limits and Pickathon to Stagecoach and Tumbleweed. He followed it up two years later with ‘Have Mercy,’ an EP that prompted Rolling Stoneto dub him “one of the most fascinating, and eccentric, new voices in country music” and NPR’s Ann Powers to proclaim it “the year of Paul Cauthen.”