Folk 296 Items

Record Store Day 2020 Release.
Limitation: 1500 copies.

Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun 'lan-?yap,' - 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus. Launched in 2005, the blog Aquarium Drunkard has become a daily destination for many on a never ending quest for musical discovery. In 2011, Aquarium Drunkard established The Lagniappe Sessions, featuring some of the site's favorite artists covering some of their favorite artists. Released for RSD Black Friday in 2016, ''The Lagniappe Sessions Volume 1'' brought these sessions to vinyl for the first time. Aquarium Drunkard has now teamed up with ORG Music for a second volume of the series, featuring an eclectic group of artists including Kevin Morby, Mikal Cronin, Mountain Goats, Damien Jurado, and many more. The record, limited to 1,500 copies worldwide, comes pressed on clear vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day 2020.

Six Organs of Admittance - Night Goat Zachary Cale - 1970 Steve Gunn - Astro Zombies Mikal Cronin - Can't Hardly Wait Scott Hirsch - So Far Away Nap Eyes - 2 Kool 2 Be 4-gotten Mountain Goats - Blood Bank Damien Jurado - Gimme A Break Mountain Man - Slow Burn RF Shannon - About Her Eyes Erin Rae - Duchess Kevin Morby - Random Rules Joan Shelley - I Would Be In Love (Anyway)

Record Store Day 2020 Release.
Limitation: 500 copies.

Hall of Famer Pete Krebs reunites his band The Gossamer Wings (feat. members of Decemberists & Richmond Fontaine) and records 10 new original songs. Much anticipated full length ''All My Friends Are Ghosts'' from the Pacific Northwest icon. Limited Edition 500 LP's. Cover art by Sean Croghan of Crackerbash. Full promotional campaign being run by Patrice Fehlen at September Gurl/NYC.

The Lost 1974 Reprise Album: A Forgotten Masterpiece First ever vinyl release. Includes 4 page insert with notes by Bryan Thomas, and many rare pictures and graphics

Best known as the right-hand-man and arranger of producer Phil Spector and for his work with the Rolling Stones or Neil Young, among many others, Bernard Alfred “Jack” Nitzsche also worked extensively in film scores, notably for films such as Performance, The Exorcist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (in 1983, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for co-writing "Up Where We Belong"). As a solo artist, he scored one of Reprise label’s first pop hits with his instrumental “The Lonely Surfer” in 1963.

Between January 14-23, 1974, Jack Nitzsche recorded a self-titled album at Cinderella Studios in Madison, Tennessee, and a release date was set for April 26, before it was pulled from the label's schedule by Warner Bros. label chief Morris "Mo" Ostin. The project was a collaboration between Nitzsche and underground filmmaker Robert Downey.

The album remained unreleased, abandoned in a North Hollywood storage facility that Warner employees call "the Vault," until Rhino Handmade included all eleven tracks in their Jack Nitzsche collection Three Piece Suit: The Reprise Recordings 1971-1974, a long out of print internet-only CD issued to great critical acclaim in 2001. This Hanky Panky / Mapache LP release marks the first time it has been made available on vinyl, as originally intended.

Inspired by the poetry of Alda Merini and her studieswith composer Garret List, Italian violinist-composerSilvia Tarozzi turned to the song form after beinginvolved for many years in contemporary music andfree improvisation. Over the course of nearly adecade, Tarozzi practiced setting the poetry of AldaMerini to music and then replacing it with her own toreflect her own life experiences. As a result, Mispecchio e rifletto is a wondrous combination ofbaroque folk, avant-garde, and progressive musicart-song that feels both poetic and earnestlyautobiographical. Echoes of past masterpiecesreverberate throughout: the gentle chamberexplorations of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the sciencefiction of Franco Battiato's 'Fetus', the abstract freejazz flourishes of Maria Monti's 'Il Bestiario', thesweetness of Caterina Casseli's 'Primavera'.As a solo performer, Tarozzi is a long timecollaborator with composers Eliane Radigue, PascaleCriton, Cassandra Miller and Martin Arnold. In duowith Deborah Walker, and as a member of EnsembleDedalus, she has worked with Christian Wolff, JürgFrey, Michael Pisaro, Catherine Lamb, SébastienRoux, and many others. She previously releasedPhilip Corner 'Extreemizms: early & late' on UnseenWorlds in 2018.

"Three Queens in Mourning first gathered in summit to sing celebration of the publication of Will Oldham’s book of collected lyrics, Songs of Love and Horror. Alasdair Roberts (Appendix Out) , Jill O’ Sullivan (Jill Lorean), and Alex Neilson (Trembling Bells, Alex Rex) each arrived provisioned with a small armful of selections nearest and dearest from Bonnie Prince Oldham’s far-reaching catalogue. On this back to back records, The Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy LP is a collection of three cover versions from Ali, Jill and Alex directory and one original track." (label info)

The latest from COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS. Produced by ANDREW SARLO (Big Thief) and featuring BIG THIEF drummer JAMES KRIVCHENIA, along with Big Thief collaborator and TWAIN member MATTHEW DAVIDSON. “Old Flowers is about heartbreak. There are a million records and songs about that, but I did not lie when writing these songs. This album is about loving and caring for the person you know you can’t be with. It’s about being afraid to be vulnerable after you’ve been hurt. It’s about a woman who is alone, but okay with that, if it means truth. This was my truth this year—my nine-year relationship ended and I’m a woman alone in the world, but happy to know herself.”—Courtney Marie Andrews.

We're super happy to announce our 13th release by Sharhabil Ahmed, the actual King of Sudanese Jazz (he actually won that title in a competition in the early 1970s). Sonically it sounds very different from what Jazz is understood to sound like outside of Sudan. It’s an incredible unique mix of rock’n’roll, funk, surf, traditional sudanese music and influences from Congolese sounds. Original copies of Sharhabil recordings are often hard to find, so we’re happy they will now be widely available. “Argos Farfish” which was featured on our last comp amassed close to 400.000 plays already.

Roza Eskenazi was a giant of rembetika, the urban Greek music of Ottoman origin associated with the poor underclass. Eskenazi’s life was extraordinary: born Sarah Spinazi to a poor Sephardic Jewish family in Constantinople, probably in the mid-1890s, after an itinerant childhood, she began dancing at the Grand Hotel Theatre in Thessaloniki. She eloped with the wealthy Yiannis Zardinidis around 1913, with whom she bore a son, but after his untimely death in 1917, she placed the son in the care of an orphanage and moved to Athens, where she danced with Armenian cabaret artists. Eventually, the composer Panagiotis Toundas discovered her singing and arranged her first recordings for Columbia Records in 1929, which catapulted her to fame. Cutting over 500 songs in the 1930s, she became the leading exponent of the Smyrna school of rembetika. Running a nightclub in Athens during the German occupation of World War II, she hid resistance fighters and British spies and helped many Jewish families flee the country. She finally toured the USA in the 1950s, and though her career subsequently waned, a 1970s revival led to further work. The longevity of her output is such that her song Misirlu was included on the soundtrack of Pulp Fiction; the 21 gems collected here were recorded between 1931 and 1947.

This compilation features some great examples of rebetika songs from the 20's and 30's including some well known artists like Rosa Eskenazi, Markos Vamvakaris, Anestis Delias, Rita Abadzi and others. An excellent overview of the phenomenon for anyone interested in southern European folk music history.

In 2016, haitian voodoo band Chouk Bwa and electronic production duo The Angströmers united to form Chouk Bwa & The Angströmers.

Chouk Bwa play traditional Haitian music; they would fit in the “Mizik Rasin” genre, alongside bands like Boukman Eksperyans, Boukan Ginen or Rasin Mapou from Azor. However, until their decisive encounter with The Angströmers, their most characteristic feature was their loyalty to the essential elements of Voodoo – therefore without any instrumental addition.

Chouk Bwa was born in 2012 in the Gonaïves under the impulsion of singer and Samba (keeper of the tradition and moral figure in the voodoo culture) Jean Claude “Sambaton” Dorvil.

Initially the band’s full name was Chouk Bwa Libète, which can be translated by “Liberty’s roots”, a reference to the famous shout uttered by Toussaint Louverture, an artisan of the Haitian revolution, who died in captivity at Fort de Doubs in 1803: “By overturning me, only the trunk of the tree of liberty fell in Santo Domingo, but it will grow again for its roots are deep and numerous”.

Following their meeting with Belgian musician Michel Wolteche in 2012, the band starts an international career that leads them to a selection for a showcase at the WOMEX 2015 and that will make them tour in more than 10 european countries (playing shows notably at the WOMAD Charlton Park, Roskilde Festival, Førde Festivalen), as well as in Malaysia (Rainforest World Music Festival), Canada (Sunfest, Vancouver Folk Festival, Calgary Folk Festival) and the USA (Savannah Music Festival). In 2015, their first album, Se nou ki la!, is released on Buda Musique.

Chouk Bwa’s music combines multiple characteristic Voodoo elements: rhythms, dances and chants. These are the roots, removed from Africa and secretly replanted in a new earth. The percussionists, going from one rhythm (and therefore one cultural reference) to another, act as collective memory smugglers, and their instruments are the material demonstration of this diversity. The dance is neither aesthetic nor premeditated, it is real; it is not about a “show” or a “choregraphy” but rather about a connexion with the drums’ spirits. On top of this, the singer’s voice ascends effortlessly above the instrumentation, which also includes bamboos and lanbi.

The setlist during a show is made up of original compositions by Sambaton as well as traditional songs rearranged by the band. As a fervent homage to the Lwa pantheon, the entire repertoire is sustained by the voodoo mystic, and throughout a song, it is sometimes the Haitian farmers’ voices, in their daily struggle for survival, that express themselves by narrating scenes of life, sometimes with the impatience of a political speech.

The singularity of this music lies in the fact that it offers a “material” very close to ceremonial music (without any significant addition) and organizes it and, in a way, concentrates it in a shape that gives it an powerful impact, accessible to a large public, however without ever distorting nor polishing it.
The Angströmers, an electronic music duo consisting of Nicolas Esterle and Frédéric Alstadt, constitute one of the artistic emanations of the label The Angströmers.

Founded in Toulouse in 1998, the label organizes events, co-produces cine-concerts with the Toulouse film library and produces one or two albums per year. In 2007 the structure is refounded in Belgium, and starts concentrating its activity on the mastering studio and the

label. Following the premature death of one of the founding members near the end of 2008, the label is put on standby, and only a few albums continue to get released episodically. The studio becomes a well-known actor of the alternative Belgian scene, specialized in vinyl mastering.

As musicians, certainly fed by their engagement in the label and the mastering, The Angströmers spread their music full of bass and echos, influenced by dub and drone music, all over the underground European stages. All along their encounter with the voodoo culture, they learn to expand their sound by immersing themselves into complex polyrhythms. They develop an electronic psychedelic music, free of all the codes of binary, 4/4 standards that dominate the club world.

Damily was born in 1968 in Tongobory, a village surrounded by the great Malagasy river Onilahy. His career as a professional Tsapiky musician began in 1986; he settled in France in 2003, and since then has been developing his international career with his Malagasy musicians. This album is a compilation of his cassettes recorded in Madagascar between 1995 and 2002.

As if they had been playing for the past 40 years in small road clubs and dusty honky tonks in the United States, Los Locos Del Oeste transport us to a time on which rock’n’roll was yet to be invented and the Hawaiian sounds and melodies from jazz mixed creating new sonic paradises. From western swing to the purest country, along with other popular melodies that dominated the airwaves between 1930 and 1960, the four piece formed by Mario Cobo (guitar and vocals), El Lega (guitar and vocals), Javier R. Cortés (double bass) and Blas Picón (drums) moves seamlessly within these styles they love and known so well. George Barnes, Jimmie Rivers, Speedy West, Jerry Bird, Chet Atkins, Charlie Christian and Bob Willis are some of the references that their elegant sound bring back.

Neil Young finally releases his 1975 album "Homegrown" which was shelved back then due to him feeling uncomfortable with it being to personal.

180g Vinyl.Continuing the work begun on her acclaimed 2019 albumThis World is Too _____ For You, Emily Wells' newest releaseIn The Dark Moving reimagines the original tracks hailed byNPR as "visionary" and "mind-blowing." Initiallycommissioned by Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's LiquidMusic Series and Metropolis Ensemble, this latest recordingoffers a thoughtful, minimal companion piece to theoriginal music in the form of Wells, her guitars, and nothingelse. Recorded solely by Wells in her Harlem studio duringthe summer of 2019, she reflects, "I'm interested in gettinganother look at a song, both in performance and recording.It keeps the song a living thing. I began working on theserecordings out of curiosity. I wanted them to be the sort ofthing a person could put on quietly at the end of the day ona little speaker and watch the light drain."

It’s the day after the 60s. You turn on the radio and there is news about John leaving the Beatles – or will Paul be the first to jump? There is insecurity and uncertainty. The rain filters into the post-psychedelic, pre-progressive sound; in times of upheaval, you always notice bad weather.

“Occasional Rain” is the sequel to Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs’ highly successful “English Weather” collection (“Really compelling and immersive: it’s a pleasure to lose yourself in it” - Alexis Petridis, the Guardian). This is the sound of young bands experimenting in a period of flux, feeling for a new direction, exploring jazz and folk – as many songs are led by mellotron, piano and flute as they are by guitar. Lyrically, there are two themes that crop up regularly: the search for a home that isn’t there anymore – the certainties of the optimistic 60s, the physical reality of terraced streets – and the rain. For the former, there’s Cressida’s gentle, keening ‘Home And Where I Long To Be’, while Duncan Browne’s shape-shifting ‘Ragged Rain Life’ feels like a decent summary of Britain in both 1970 and 2020.

“Occasional Rain” puts the era’s bigger names (Traffic, Yes, Moody Blues) and the lesser known (Mandy More, Shape Of The Rain, Tonton Macoute) side by side. Like its predecessor “English Weather”, it evokes the turn of the new decade, a beautiful state of fuzzy confusion, and the feel of a wet Saturday afternoon at the dawn of the 70s spent flicking through the racks, wondering whether to buy the new Tull album or maybe take a chance on that Christine Harwood album in the bargain bin (go on, you won’t regret it).

Türküola proudly presents a brand new Cem Karaca album where most of the songs made their premieres inside this release. From the original masters of Türküola, we will be hearing Apaşlar, Ferdy Klein and even Dervişan era of Cem Karaca with English lyrics. As the opening track, we hear “Mutlaka Yavrum” which he recorded with Dervişan in 1975 which is really a political piece also with English lyrics. Karaca tells the stories of the children in refugee camps because of the Palestine and Israel conflict. The English versions of “Kendim Ettim Kendim Buldum”, “Emmioğlu”, “Muhtar” and “Baba” have the same playback with their Turkish versions but this time directly and faithfully transferred from their original masters. These tracks were recorded with Ferdy Klein Orchestra in 1970. The Turkish versions of these songs were previously released but the English ones were in the treasure box till now. “Tears”(Resimdeki Gözyaşları), “No No No” (Emrah 1970), “Why” (Oy Babo) and “Istanbul” (Istanbul’u Dinliyorum) are the recordings of Apaşlar with the support of Ferdy Klein Orchestra dated 1968 and the English versions were also released in the same era as two separate singles. In this album, we also hear instrumental tracks played by Apaşlar with the support of Ferdy Klein Orchestra namely “Memories of Marmara” (Emrah 1970) where vocal parts are replaced with strings, “Laila’s Dream” (Resimdeki Gözyaşalrı-Tears) where vocal parts are given with brass and solo sax, “Oy Bana Bana” where vocal parts are replaced with electric guitar and sax. These three songs were previously released in the LP of The Bosporus Sound Orchestra named “Laila’s Dream” which had been released by United Artists, Liberty, and Türkofon before. The Bosporus Sound Orchestra was, of course, Ferdy Klein’s pseudonym for his orchestra. Thanks to Türküola for making these legendary recordings meet its collectors and Anatolian Pop fans via faithfully transferred master recordings.

Chaotic Good is J. Warren’s fifth full-length album and first for Wax Nine/Carpark Records. It represents a moment of rupture in the singer-songwriter’s career as she transitions away from the quiet, folk-adjacent work that defined her early solo albums with a bold statement piece that demonstrates the breadth of her ambition.

Teranga Beat proudly presents Ormenion, a record by the group Evritiki Zygia. Ormenion is a historical region that dates back to the Byzantine Empire. It is the northernmost inhabited region of Greece, where the last railway station of the country is located. During the 1920's it was inhabited by refugees coming from the North and Eastern Thrace. Immigration is central to the history of the region of Thrace, where many songs refer to refugees and moving populations. The name of this particular place
was selected as the album title due to its delicate cultural and geographic status: Ormenion coincides with the borders of three different countries (Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey) and its history counts several waves of immigration that gave way to cultural and even linguistic exchange -elements that obviously left their mark on the group.
The group Evritiki Zygia was founded in 2007 by five musicians who played mostly in local festivals, their main concern being the preservation and evolution of the Thracian musical tradition. The collaboration with Teranga Beat helped this project evolve even further. Forms of arrangement different than the ones used in local feasts and festivals, were introduced giving more space to the dynamics of the instruments and allowing musicians to show both their improvisational and compositional skills. The distinctively psychedelic element of Thracian music was enhanced with the introduction of the CRB-Diamond 800 organ and the Moog, giving the whole project a hybrid sound with a unique identity. The album contains both covers of traditional songs and original
compositions.
The band's highest point was their appearance at the Womex Festival in 2018, where their music was presented for the first time in front of an international audience. This was an extremely important achievement for us, given that up until then this type of music
remained unknown even to Greek audiences. But it was also a great and very creative experience for the band, as it broadened up its musical horizons.The album was recorded on an analog 24-track tape Otari MX 80 in two sessions that took place on May 18 and 19 2019. It is a live recording that captures the energy of the group’s live performances. The LP version of the album is a Deluxe Edition and comes with a high gloss laminated gatefold cover, a printed insert and a digital download code. The CD packaging is Digipak with Slipcase, including a booklet with photos and liner notes outlining the story of the band.

Melancholic and mysterious, but at the same time strangely familiar. Combining surreal soundscapes with a distinct sixties-style songwriting, Emile’s psychedelic loner folk debut comes together like a weird dream. A dream that shows a side of reality, too strange to observe in any other way. Driven by acoustic guitar and haunting arrangements, the frontman of The Sonic Dawn presents a unique backdrop, on which songs about death, life, loss and fear of growing old melt together with a dystopian look into the near future of our civilization.