MUSIC

The second outing for our short run book publishing imprint, The End books, takes the form of a reprint of Spanish Cante Jondo and Its Origin in Sindhi Music, originally published in Spanish in 1955 under the name Cante Jondo: Su Origen y Evolución and later in this English translation. Aziz Balouch presents his theory on the roots of flamenco's 'deep song' in modern-day Pakistan, a cultural journey that mimics the routes of his own life, having been brought up among the Islamic mysticism and devotional songs of Sindh before travelling to Gibraltar in the early 1930s and becoming transfixed with the cante jondo across the border in southern Spain. Positing this concept through personal accounts rather than solid theoretical backing, this text provides a valuable account of an extraordinary existence that crossed remarkable geographical, musical, and spiritual lines. Issued here with a new introduction from anthropologist of sound, the senses and Islam, Stefan Williamson Fa. "It would be easy to place Balouch on the fringes, as an eccentric footnote in flamenco history. But that misses the shape of his life and work. He was a figure who moved intuitively across boundaries that our present categories of nation, genre, discipline tend to fix in place. His work predates the founding of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology, the global circuits of world music, and the marketplace logic of fusion projects by decades. He was not an ethnographer or a proto–world musician, but someone for whom the deep song of Andalusia and the devotional song of the subcontinent resonated along the same fault lines of feeling, and who spent his life trying to trace them. This book is one of the few surviving traces of that attempt. To read it now is to encounter a perspective that resists tidy narratives of influence or origin, despite its title and what he claims to do. It stands instead as evidence of an idiosyncratic musical imagination, one that relied less on proof than on listening, and on the belief that certain echoes carry farther than history can easily explain." — Stefan Williamson Fa

Cumbia, currulao, bambuco, juga and Afro Colombian music taken to the realms of dub by Llorona Records & Discos Pacífico producer and dub maestro Cerrero. Cerrero steps into his lab like the alchemists of 1970s Kingston: cutting, repeating, filtering, letting the bass breathe, and allowing echo and reverb to give a new dimension to a unique selection of songs from the catalogs of Llorona Records and Discos Pacífico. Cerrero Dubs is a tribute to classic dub, crafted with the soul of cumbia, juga, and bambuco, from Palenque, San Jacinto, Guapi, and Tumaco: live manipulation, sonic experimentation, bass as backbone, delay as tool. Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Son Palenque, Sexteto Tabalá, Bejuco, Agrupación Changó and Semblanzas del Río Guapi… transported into a universe where the sounds of Colombia 's jungles and coasts are not remixed — they are deconstructed, twisted, and dubbed. Cerrero —sound alchemist and founder of Llorona Records and Discos Pacífico— offers a selection of versions in which the Caribbean and Afro-Pacific sounds of Colombia are transformed into hypnotic, ethereal, psychedelic, and minimalist soundscapes. A reinterpretation of the legacy of iconic groups, shaped through the console and the sensitivity of a producer exploring the possible futures of local sound. Llorona Records presenta: Cerrero Dubs Canciones emblematicas de agrupaciones legendarias del sonido Caribe y Pacifico de Colombia llevadas al territorio del dub por CERRERO, productor al frente de Llorona Records y Discos Pacífico Cerrero —productor y fundador de Llorona Records y Discos Pacífico— entra en su laboratorio como lo hacían los alquimistas del Kingston de los años 70: cortando, repitiendo, filtrando, dejando que el bajo respire, y permitiendo que el eco y la reverberación de otra dimensión a una selección única de canciones del catálogo de Llorona Records y Discos Pacífico. Cerrero Dubs es un homenaje al dub clásico, hecho con alma de cumbia, juga y bambuco, desde Palenque, San Jacinto, Guapi y Tumaco: manipulación en vivo, experimentación sonora, bajo como columna vertebral, delay como herramienta. Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, Son Palenque, Sexteto Tabalá, Bejuco, Agrupación Changó y Semblanzas del Río Guapi… llevados a un universo donde el sonido de las selvas y costas de Colombia no se remezcla: se deconstruye, se retuerce, se dubbea. Cerrero nos entrega una selección de versiones en las que el sonido caribe y afropacífico de Colombia se transforma en paisajes hipnóticos, etéreos, psicodélicos y minimalistas. Una reinterpretación del legado de agrupaciones icónicas, desde la consola y la sensibilidad de uno de los productores que explora los futuros posibles de los sonidos locales.

Recorded live on location, this is a style of music unlike anything you have ever heard before and the first album of the Himba people's music ever released from northwest Namibia. From the album's producer and recordist, Ian Brennan: "The Namib desert is the oldest in the world. Therefore, the driest. Italian-Rwandan photographer, Marilena Umuhoza Delli and I had come to record with possibly the most photographed people on earth, the Himba— to listen rather than gaze at them as if on display. To share their voices as a counter to their visual objectification, particularly the inappropriate eroticization of the women who customarily go topless throughout daily life. We had to stress multiple times that we did not want the musicians to don touristic tribal costumes— quite possibly the first music project in history that urged performers to cover-up rather than pleading with artists to expose more flesh. But it was to no avail. When the assigned hour arrived, the men all ditched the baseball caps and soccer jerseys that they routinely wear. And for the women, the reality is that they almost without exception keep their torsos bare, even in winter. We had to acquiesce. Forcing the issue would have only been the flipside of inauthenticity. The featured, traditional instrument is the Cattle Gun. It’s rarely found these days and therefore, costly. Made from the lengthy horn of an Oryx and coated in mud, it is blown, resulting in a breathy, rattled tone. Via the use of live looping on three of the album’s tracks, psychedelic vocal tapestries were created as if snatched from the ever-shifting skies that enshrined the valley from all sides. But even more esoteric results arose from members cupping hands over mouth to create chorusing and flanging effects sans electricity or gear. Rather than "primitive" or traditional, the Himba music making is imbued with innovation and timelessness." Limited Edition Pressing of 500 vinyl copies with 4-page color insert including photos of the musicians and liner notes by Grammy-award winning producer and author, Ian Brennan.

Born in the ashes of WWII, the only girl of seven children, they called her Pinky. She grew up in the windy plains of the Texas panhandle, singing in the church choir and dreaming of being on the stage one day. Just 18, she met the love of her life and soon married rodeo cowboy Cole Tex. Sharing a common thirst for adventure, they traveled the country roads together. He wrote the songs and Pinky sang them, performing in small roadhouses and honky-tonks all over the southwestern states. These are some of the few recordings that still exist.

Ethnic Music Classics: 1925-48. Restocked. Outernational Records is pleased to announce the third volume of this legendary series is now available on the vinyl format. This series of archival 78 transfers was originally released in 1995 on CD only. Now for the first time on vinyl, a deluxe gatefold presentation and limited edition pressing. Reissue produced by Hisham Mayet (Sublime Frequencies) in conjunction with Yazoo Records. Compiled here are many of the greatest performances of world and ethnic music ever recorded. This volume represents a trip around the world, stopping at each port to sample one of that country's finest recordings of its indigenous music. Each of these recordings was captured at a period during the golden age of recording when traditional styles were at their peak of power and emotion. Included inside are extensive notes and beautiful period photographs that work together with the music to communicate an exciting sense of discovery. Early 20th century recordings from Poland, Spain, China, Angola, Turkey, Mongolia, Russia, the Congo, and elsewhere, compiled by archivist Pat Conte.

Ethnic Music Classics: 1925-48. This series of archival 78 transfers was originally released in 1995 on CD only. Now for the first time on vinyl, a deluxe gatefold presentation and limited edition pressing. Reissue produced by Hisham Mayet (Sublime Frequencies) in conjunction with Yazoo Records. Compiled here are many of the greatest performances of world and ethnic music ever recorded. This volume represents a trip around the world, stopping at each port to sample one of that country's finest recordings of its indigenous music. Each of these recordings was captured at a period during the golden age of recording when traditional styles were at their peak of power and emotion. Included inside are extensive notes and beautiful period photographs that work together with the music to communicate an exciting sense of discovery. Early 20th century recordings from Bulgaria, Puerto Rico, India, Mozambique, Ukraine, Trinidad, Kazakhstan, Ceylon, Tibet and elsewhere, compiled by archivist Pat Conte.

Subtitled: Ethnic Music Classics: 1925-48. This series of archival 78 transfers was originally released in 1995 on CD only. Now for the first time on vinyl, a deluxe gatefold presentation in a limited edition pressing. Produced by Hisham Mayet (Sublime Frequencies) in conjunction with Yazoo Records. Compiled here are many of the greatest performances of world and ethnic music ever recorded. This volume represents a trip around the world, stopping at each port to sample one of that country's finest recordings of its indigenous music. Each of these recordings was captured at a period during the golden age of recording when traditional styles were at their peak of power and emotion. Included inside are extensive notes and beautiful period photographs that work together with the music to communicate an exciting sense of discovery. "One of the most consistently rewarding world music compilations in years, the cuts range from Macedonian fiddle jaunts to Puerto Rican Christmas tunes, from Abyssinian religious chants to ominous Japanese court music. The instruments include Ukrainian sleigh bells, Sardinian triple pipes, Vietnamese moon lutes and Ethiopian one-string violins...a profound artistry lurks beneath the alien vernaculars." --Village Voice; Vol. 1 contains music from Nigeria, Sardinia, Russia, Ceylon, Rajahstan, Cuba, Rumania, Vietnam, Macedonia, Morocco, Society Islands, South Africa, India, Japan, Jamaica, Fiji, and more.

Rarest Afro-Latinate funk fire from ’70s / ‘80s Benin, by a Vodún initiate known as “The Devil’s Prime Minister”, and recalled with admiration and fear by those he played with. A dozen cuts, 73 minutes of inimitable West African potency, performed by the crackshot L’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - check for ‘Ye Ko Gni Me Towe Dea’ and you’ll know what to do next. "Even the most dedicated crate-digger might go their whole life without stumbling across any of the three LPs Antoine Dougbe released in the late 1970s and early '80s. Yet he is remembered with a mixture of admiration and fear; for Antoine Dougbe was not merely one of the most inventive songwriters to emerge from the fertile music scene of Cotonou, but also a powerful Vodun initiate whose close connection to the spirit world allowed him to refer to himself as "the Devil's prime minister." Whether driven by the thrill of the music or by fear of crossing the Devil's prime minister, Dougbe's records all feature Orchestre Poly-Rythmo playing at the absolute height of their considerable powers. But Dougbe was unique in the sense he neither sang nor performed any of the main instrumental parts. It has been suggested that his involvement with Vodun prohibited him from using his voice for anything as frivolous as a popular song. Instead he provided his songs to Melome Clement, who arranged them for the band; most of the vocals were handled by Lohento Eskill and Amoussou William."

The World Is but a Place of Survival: Ethiopian Begena Songs documents the spiritual heart of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Amhara tradition. The begena, a ten‑stringed lyre linked by legend to King David, is reserved solely for sacred music. Its rich, buzzing tone – produced by leather strips beneath the strings – is believed to protect against evil and bring players closer to God. Symbolising elements of the faith, the instrument is played during times of prayer and reflection, especially Lent. Long associated with scholars and nobles, the begena endured even the Derg regime’s ban.

Recorded in Addis Ababa by Stéphanie Weisser (2002–2005) and mastered by Renaud Millet‑Lacombe, this release comes via Death Is Not The End under licence from VDE‑Gallo, Switzerland.

Gagaku is the oldest of the Japanese performing arts, with a history more than a thousand years old. The term refers to Japanese classical music and dance, traditionally performed by families of musicians linked to the ancient Imperial court, and later passed down in Buddhist temple ceremonies and Shinto shrines. Shiba Sukeyasu, founder and director of the Reigakusha ensemble, descends from the Koma clan, whose origins date back to the end of the 10th century. The recordings partly reflect repertoires borrowed from Chinese music between the 5th and 9th centuries. The incredible variety of timbres of the instruments greatly amplifies our exotic imagination: the eternal breath of the flutes (ryuteki and hichiriki) creates a sort of suspension of time, together with the hypnotic and hallucinatory atmosphere of the mouth organs (shō). The meditative tone of the string instruments (bika and koto) that punctuate the voids and silences is impressive, as is the enigmatic percussion section, with the tolling of the gong (shōko) and the calibrated beats of the drums (taiko and kakko).

"First vinyl reissue of this Indian classical masterpiece recorded by Shrimati Kalyani Roy in the late 1960s. Undoubtedly one of the most talented sitar players in the history of the instrument. She is considered as one the finest female players in a field that was dominated by her male counterparts. On these recordings, a two-volume set, she is accompanied by Manick Das (tabla) and Namita Chatterjee (tambura). Recorded in Japan on September 20th, 1974. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (V 2011LP) come as two separate LPs."

"First vinyl reissue of this Indian classical masterpiece recorded by Shrimati Kalyani Roy in the late 1960s. Undoubtedly one of the most talented sitar players in the history of the instrument. She is considered as one the finest female players in a field that was dominated by her male counterparts. On these recordings, a two-volume set, she is accompanied by Manick Das (tabla) and Namita Chatterjee (tambura). Recorded in Japan on September 20th, 1974. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (V 2011LP) come as two separate LPs."

Long out of print, few copies spotted of this late 70's dreamy folk album...Veronique Chalot was born in Normandy in the north of France, but it was in Paris that she first became interested in traditional French folk music. In 1974 she landed in Rome where she soon earned a small, but dedicated following. England may have its Jacqui McShee (Pentangle), but France and Italy have its Veronique Chalot. For the past three decades Veronique has dedicated herself to playing, recording and researching medieval, renaissance, and early folk music from France and Italy, helping to save these musical forms from total obscurity. A l'entree du temps clair, released in 1982 on the small Italian Materiali Sonori label, was recorded while Veronique was living and researching in Italy. Although it was only her second studio album, Veronique's immense talent and sensitivity was already extremely evident. Here she sings and plays classical guitar (as well as the dulcimer and the hurdy-gurdy), backed by five Italian musicians playing a number of traditional instruments, including bouzouki, bagpipes, crumhorn, bendhir and bodhran, making this album of early French traditional music an enjoyable discovery even nearly three decades after its release.

For the first time in Nø Førmat’s history, the CD and vinyl editions of ‘A Touma’ will be available exclusively to Nø Førmat! subscribers. Subscribe to the PASS and get all of our productions of the year! After the success of Djourou, the Malian virtuoso returns for an intimate tête à tête with his kora – intimate yet simple and majestic. Taking time off from the Djourou sessions, Ballaké recorded these eight instrumental pieces in the intimate confines of the Chapelle Sainte-Apolline in Belgium. Together they proclaim, without need for further evidence, the heights of mastery and freedom that this discreet giant of global music has scaled in his forty-year-long career. Though two of the pieces also feature on Djourou, the new album gathers together all eight of them in a musical conversation between a master, made of flesh and spirit, and his ‘double’, made of string and wood. It’s a captivating, intimate and authentic testament, recorded in one afternoon, in which Ballaké takes us on a journey, a meandering trip full of majesty that borders on the sacred and touches serene meditative uplands as well as plains criss-crossed by Manding warriors straight out of the epics of a country of whom they are the pride. As for the title ‘A Touma’, take it to mean ‘this is the moment’: the moment for Ballaké to share the fruits of his maturity, and for us to discover and be blown away.

The legendary singer Salif Keita makes a grand return with So Kono, an acoustic and deeply intimate album. Salif Keita, "the golden voice of Africa," reveals himself for the first time in a stripped-down acoustic format, reconnecting with his roots and his guitar, his long-time companion instrument. The idea of an acoustic album had long been dismissed by the artist himself. "I’m not a guitarist; I use the guitar to compose," he used to say, reluctant to expose this level of vulnerability. However, in 2023, during the Kyotophonie Festival in Japan, organized by photographer Lucille Reyboz and encouraged by producer Laurent Bizot (Nø Førmat!), something changed. Surrounded by the spirituality of a Zen temple and supported by his loyal musicians – Badié Tounkara on ngoni and Mamadou Koné on percussion – Salif agreed to bare himself like never before. The title So Kono, meaning “in the room” in Mandinka, reflects both the simplicity and depth of this album. Recorded in the intimacy of his hotel room in Kyoto, 'So Kono' captures the very essence of Salif Keita: a powerful voice, shaped by trials and travels, elevated by minimalist arrangements. Blending reimagined classics and new compositions, this album resonates as a sincere and timeless work, reaffirming why Salif Keita is considered one of the greatest living singers, across all cultures and continents.

“Morette ite, Hissori ne.”, the debut album by Marewrew, returns in a newly remixed and remastered edition. This landmark recording, which brings Ainu traditional songs into the present, has been revived with updated artwork and is being released on vinyl for the first time.

A Senegalese Griot singer, an Amsterdam improviser and a Puerto Rican jazz drummer find eachother on an open playground, a stage build for improvisation, an old cinema now used for minute made story telling. Equiped with an m'bira, a xalam, a drumkit, a voice, percussion, house hold tools and an electric chlavichord on 220 volt, they sit down and take off: Wrrrrrraaang!

Singer and percussionist Mola Sylla is in many ways a musical explorer. Born and raised in Dakar, Senegal, he grew up in the tradition of the griots. Griots play conveying stories – sometimes decorated with music, theater and dance – which all play an important role in West African culture. His rhythm and melodic compositions differ from the western agreed schedules and provide surprising twists.

Puerto Rican drummer Frank Rosaly has been involved in the improvised and experimental music scenes since 2001 when he became an integral part of Chicago's musical fabric, navigating a fine line between the vibrant improvised music, experimental, rock and jazz communities.

Oscar Jan Hoogland is the sound of Amsterdam in person. He is an instant composer and inventor of his own instrument by joining a clavichord, a keyboard instrument from the 17th century, to 220 Volt electricity. As the last student of the late pianist, composer and improvisor Misha Mengelberg he tears like a tornado through the Amsterdam jazz and impro scene.

Together they are MOTHER TONGUE.

About a hundred kilometers south-west of Bamako, on the left bank of the Niger River, the Malian village of Kela is known to be home to a large community of griot musicians (jeliw) mostly belonging to the Diabaté family. Their art is recognised throughout West Africa and many griots come from all over the world to stay there, sometimes for several years, in the hope of becoming immersed in it. The six pieces for voice accompanied by guitar or traditional koni lutes were recorded in 1978 (tracks 3 to 6) and in 2019 (tracks 1 to 3), in the same traditional dwelling, which still serves as a "studio". The accompanying booklet contains the testimonies of several important musicians who took part in the recording, and evoke key elements of their universe

Carrying on from recent archival releases from masters of Indian classical tradition such as Kamalesh Maitra and the Dagar Brothers, Black Truffle is pleased to present a previously unheard recording of a concert by Pakistani vocalist Salamat Ali Khan. Born to a musician family in Hoshiarpur in the northwestern state of Punjab, Khan moved with his family to Lahore in Pakistan after the 1947 partition of India, becoming a child musical prodigy. Khan was a master of the kyhal form of Hindustani classical vocal music, a style integrating influences from Middle Eastern musical traditions that gives the singer a great deal of improvisational freedom. Travelling widely across the globe from the 1960s until his death in 2001, Khan approached ragas performed in the kyhal style as expressive forums for risk-taking improvisation, enlivened by ceaseless ornamental invention.

This remarkable recording was captured by Michael Hönig (of krautrock legends Agitation Free) in concert at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie as part of the MetaMusik festival in 1974 (which also featured Nico, Tangerine Dream, and Roberto Laneri’s Prima Materia, among many others). Khan, who is also heard accompanying himself on a specially tuned alpine zither (in place of the traditional swarmandal, an Indian style of zither), is joined by Shaukat Hussein Khan on tabla and Hussein Bux Khan on harmonium. The lack of a familiar underlying tanpura drone gives this performance a weightless, floating quality, with all three of the musicians playing masterfully with the interaction between silence and the pulse propelling each section of the raag. As Khan explains in his opening remarks, this performance of the rainy season Raag Megh is divided into three parts, each with its own tempo and rhythmic scheme (tala). The opening vilambit, in a twelve-beat tala, stretches out for over twenty minutes, lingering for a long time in a space of meditative calm, Khan lightly strumming the zither while exploring the lower end of his range in languorously extended notes. Virtuoso tabla interjections at first barely state the tempo, and the interplay between musicians is so spacious that we hear scraps of audience noise and the squeak of the harmonium’s mechanism in between the notes. Gradually picking up rhythmic definition and melodic complexity, after around fifteen minutes the music builds dramatically, with Khan letting out emotive yelps and swooping scalar shapes ranging across his full vocal range. This flows seamlessly into the following jhaptal, at a faster tempo in ten beats, which then makes way for the concluding teental, very fast in sixteen beats, which becomes a frantic improvisational exchange of daring rhythmic disruptions from the tabla, flowing harmonium melodies, and a stunning variety of vocal approaches from Khan, ranging from rapid-fire staccato consonants to guttural growls. Accompanied by stunning black and white concert photographs, the LP also contains a moving and entertaining recollection from acclaimed German musicologist Peter Pannke, looking back on his experience assisting Khan and his musicians in Berlin at the Metamusik festival (including a mouth-watering description of a feast cooked by the maestro himself). As Pannke describes in his account of attending the concert, the beauty and spiritual intensity of this music leaves the listener speechless.

If you head north on 1-85 from Hillsborough, NC, and take the exit for 58 East, in fifteen minutes you'll reach Diamond Grove, a small unincorporated area in Brunswick County, Virginia on the Meherrin River. To most eyes, there's not much there—you'll have to drive to Lawrenceville for groceries or to South Hill for hardware. But hidden in this patch of Virginia piedmont are the remnants of a dairy farm established in the 1740s, its main house an old two up, two down beauty still outfitted with rope beds and all. Go there today and you'll hear distant sounds of someone working soybeans and cotton in the leased-out outbuildings, farm-use tires grinding gravel roads, frogs peeping, and chickadees singing out: chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee. But if you happened to pass through in September of 2023, you might've heard fiddle tunes ricocheting off the pines, BBS rattling-to-rest inside empties, and the sounds of Weirs recording their second LP and Dear Life Records debut: Diamond Grove.Weirs is an experimental collective grown out of central North Carolina's music scene—one that is equal parts oldtime and DIY noise. Non-hierarchical in form, past Weirs performances have included anywhere from two to twelve people. In September 2023, nine traveled up US-58 to pack into the living and dining rooms of the dairy farm main house, still in the family of band member and organizer Oliver Child-Lanning, whose relatives have been there for centuries. This Weirs lineup—neither definitive nor precious—includes Child-Lanning; Justin Morris and Libby Rodenbough (his collaborators in Sluice); Evan Morgan, Courtney Werner, and Mike DeVito of Magic Tuber Stringband; and stalwarts Andy McLeod, Alli Rogers, and Oriana Messer who played deep into those late-summer evenings. What resulted are the nine tracks of Diamond Grove, recorded with an ad hoc signal chain assembled from a greater-communitys worth of borrowed gear.The Weirs project began as tape experiments on traditional tunes Child-Lanning made under the name Pluviöse in winter 2019. This evolved into the first Weirs record, Prepare to Meet God, which was self-released in July 2020 and was a collaboration between Child-Lanning and Morris during COVID. The strange conditions of that debut—a communal tradition of live songs recorded apart in isolation—are undone by Diamond Grove, a record rooted in the unrepeatable convergence of people, place, and time. On the new record, Weirs continue their search for how best to forward, uphold, and unshackle so-called "traditional" music. They are songcatchers, gathering tunes on the verge of obscure death. Their wild, centuries-spanning repertoire plays like an avant-call-the-tune session—a kind of Real Book for a scene fluent in porch jams, Big Blood, Amps for Christ, and Jean Ritchie. Weirs catch songs whose interpretive canon still feels ajar—open enough to stand next to but never above those who've sung them before. These aren't attempts at definitive versions. The recordings on Diamond Grove feel like visitations rather than revisions. And the question Weirs asks on this record is not how to simply continue the tradition of their forebears, but how traditional music could sound today.For Weirs, the history of this tradition could be taken less from the folk revival than from musique concréte; less from pristine old master recordings than something like The Shadow Ring if theyd come from the evangelical South. One listen to "(A Still, Small Voice)" and you'll hear the power of the hymn give way to its equal: the floorboards, fire crackle, dinners made and eaten. This tension between preservation and degradation is the inner light of Diamond Grove. Take "Doxology l": the melody of "Old Hundred", a hymn from the Sacred Harp tradition, is converted to MIDI, played through iPhone speakers, and re-recorded in the September air. To some revivalists, this hymn sung with all the glory of fake auto-tuned voices might sound sacreligious. But ears attuned, say, to the hyperpop production of the last few decades will immediately understand the tense beauty of hearing digitallyartifacted shape-note singing. This same tension animates "l Want to Die Easy." Weirs' version draws from A Golden Ring of Gospel's recording, monumentalized in the Folkways collection Sharon Mountain Harmony. The melodies, words, structure are largely unchanged. But the "'pure" clarity of voice in the early recording is gone. In its place, we hear the distancing sound of the dairy farm silo where Weirs recorded their version, its natural two-second reverb replacing pristine proximity. In this way, the sound of the recording site itself becomes equal to the traditional performance.The beating heart of Diamond Grove is Weirs's take on "Lord Bateman," a tune Jean Ritchie called a "big ballad:" played when the chores were done and the night's dancing had stopped. It is an 18th-century song—as old as the Diamond Grove farm—about a captured adventurer, described by Nic Jones as embodying the spirit of an Errol Flynn film. Like many great and often a cappella renditions, this "'Lord Bateman" is voice-forward, foregrounding the gather-round-children importance of yarn spinning. What's new here is the immense drone that transubstantiates the narrative into a ceaseless body of elemental forces. It's an eye-blurring murmur of collective strings that adds to the canon of Ritchie and June Tabor as much as to Pelt's Ayahuasca or Henry Flynt's Hillbilly Tape Music.While Diamond Grove isn't explicitly about the old dairy farm where it was recorded, it can't help but resemble it. Old English ballads like "'Lord Bateman" and "'Lord Randall" spill into fields once 'granted' by the British Crown. Tragic songs like "'Edward" stagger across Tuscarora trails and postbellum cotton rows. Hymns like "'Everlasting l" and "Everlasting Il" catch a moonlight that's been falling through double-hung windows since Lord Bacon's Rebellion. And the nocturnals still trill and plows still till a music uncomposed, waiting for any and all ears to chance upon it. Diamond Grove, in these ways, is history. It is a place. It is time. It is songcatching, liveness, tape manipulation. Like the low-head dam that the word weir implies, it is a defense against the current. It is a defense of regional lexicons against mass-produced vernaculars; a defense against the belief that we can simply return to a simpler time; a defense against the idea that folk music must remain "pure"; a defense against the claim that a dream of the future latent in lost histories is irretrievably lost. Against all that, Diamond Grove defends traditional music by making it sound like the complexity of today—because it knows that such music, and all the histories caught up in it, has a role to play in the days to come.

"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 never changed during all these years. It is still made of wood and animal products, such as the intestine of the sheep for the strings, the leather that covers the sound box. It is used for praying, for praising God and for meditation, just as it was in the olden days and it has survived until the present day. During the time of the Derg regime, after the overthrow of the emperor Haile Selassie, it was no longer considered important. As for the Begena, which used to be broadcasted through the radio during the fasting season, all this was stopped. At that time I was a teacher at the music school, the only music school in the country, and because I did not get the necessary support to develop it I had to stop, because I was not allowed to teach. And so we could say that it did become a disappearing popular art. But not anymore, especially in the past 15, 16 years it has revived. There are many Begena players, mostly youngsters, of whom I have taught more than 500 students. Still there are some Begena makers, who make the instrument for new students. What is interesting about this instrument is that the music, or the tone that comes out of this instrument, has a special power to make people to concentrate, to keep quiet, to be carried away in thoughts, thinking of what is said. This is a special quality. You don't have to be an Ethiopian, anybody can listen to it, automatically it will make him keep quiet and concentrate."

— Alemu Aga

"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 never changed during all these years. It is still made of wood and animal products, such as the intestine of the sheep for the strings, the leather that covers the sound box. It is used for praying, for praising God and for meditation, just as it was in the olden days and it has survived until the present day. During the time of the Derg regime, after the overthrow of the emperor Haile Selassie, it was no longer considered important. As for the Begena, which used to be broadcasted through the radio during the fasting season, all this was stopped. At that time I was a teacher at the music school, the only music school in the country, and because I did not get the necessary support to develop it I had to stop, because I was not allowed to teach. And so we could say that it did become a disappearing popular art. But not anymore, especially in the past 15, 16 years it has revived. There are many Begena players, mostly youngsters, of whom I have taught more than 500 students. Still there are some Begena makers, who make the instrument for new students. What is interesting about this instrument is that the music, or the tone that comes out of this instrument, has a special power to make people to concentrate, to keep quiet, to be carried away in thoughts, thinking of what is said. This is a special quality. You don't have to be an Ethiopian, anybody can listen to it, automatically it will make him keep quiet and concentrate."

— Alemu Aga

The World Is but a Place of Survival: Ethiopian Begena Songs documents the spiritual heart of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Amhara tradition. The begena, a ten‑stringed lyre linked by legend to King David, is reserved solely for sacred music. Its rich, buzzing tone – produced by leather strips beneath the strings – is believed to protect against evil and bring players closer to God. Symbolising elements of the faith, the instrument is played during times of prayer and reflection, especially Lent. Long associated with scholars and nobles, the begena endured even the Derg regime’s ban.

Recorded in Addis Ababa by Stéphanie Weisser (2002–2005) and mastered by Renaud Millet‑Lacombe, this release comes via Death Is Not The End under licence from VDE‑Gallo, Switzerland.

The fifth and final volume of World Arbiter's Japanese Traditional Music marks the completion of the label's excavation and restoration of 60 10" 78RPM discs of Japanese traditional music, bringing a great body of lost music to light and offering in full a legacy that has been almost entirely unavailable until now, even in Japan. The original set was manufactured in 1941 by a company now called the Japan Foundation, and was intended to be presented exclusively to libraries (though the Japan Foundation now has no record of having produced it). There are only two known sets of these discs, both missing the same final 10". World Arbiter acquired one original set of 59 from Beate Sirota Gordon (daughter of pianist Leo Sirota) in the 1990s, and, after a ten-year search, finally located a test pressing of the 60th disc in a theater museum in Japan. Upon first hearing these recordings, World Arbiter's Allan Evans was shocked to hear that the discs contained every species of traditional music, from the court's origins in shamanic rites, Buddhist chant, Noh plays, kabuki, and blind biwa players' haunting songs of chilling epics, to the recordings presented here: a final volume full of folk songs that captures rice planters, weavers, tuna and herring fishers, and children, all funkier than one could imagine and with the presence of eternity in their every sound and breath. The sounds and intensity of Volume Five's folk music surpass anything heard in the classical music of Japan. With Japan's ongoing modernization and loss of its traditional music, World Arbiter's audio restoration removes artifacts from chronological chains to resonate in the eternal flow of sound that defies time and space, remaining vital and always in the present. Includes 24 tracks of performances by anonymous Japanese singers.