World / Traditional / India
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"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
Re-upping and expanding our 2020 sufi-flamenco grail on LP and tape format, adding 4 newly unearthed tracks to those previously thought to be Aziz Balouch's only recordings.
Aziz Balouch moved to the Iberian Peninsula from modern-day Pakistan in 1932 in search of work and music. After a childhood spent studying Islamic mysticism and devotional songs in the Sufi shrines of his native Sindh he soon fell in love with the 'deep song' of flamenco and was taken in as an apprentice to the great heterodox cantaor Pepe Marchena after a chance encounter. He dedicated the rest of his life to flamenco and developed an elaborate theory of the South Asian and Sufi origins of the art which he propagated through live performances and publications in London, Spain and Pakistan.
Decades before the arrival of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology or the invention of 'fusion' Aziz Balouch painstakingly immersed himself into a completely different musical tradition seeking connections and drawing inspiration to create a unique performance style which has tragically remained hidden and ignored. These 8 tracks are taken from Aziz Balouch's only surviving recordings, two 7" EPs released in Spain in 1962. On each track Balouch draws on his polyglottism to seamlessly merge Sufi poetry in Persian, Sindhi, Hindi and Arabic with various forms of Andalusian song in Spanish. Accompanied by a single guitar his voice pushes through into the profound depths of human experience to excavate the shared past of flamenco which had been submerged beneath the surface.
Many thanks to Stefan Williamson Fa.
Their Greatest Hits gathers the most iconic recordings by Orchestra Super Mazembe, one of the defining groups of East African music. Originally released in the mid-1980s, this collection captures the band at the height of their popularity, blending Congolese rumba influences with Swahili lyricism and irresistibly infectious grooves.
Tracks such as Kasongo, Shauri Yako, and Salima showcase Super Mazembe’s signature sound—dance-driven, melodic, and deeply rooted in regional traditions while remaining universally accessible. Reissued by Survival Research, this LP stands as both a celebration of the band’s legacy and an ideal entry point for new listeners discovering African classics.
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 evolution of Congolese popular music in the 1960s and 70s is generally classified into two major schools: African Jazz & OK Jazz. The main representatives of those schools are Joseph Kabasele alias Grand Kallé, founder of African Jazz, and Franco Luambo, co-founder of O.K. Jazz. Two temperaments and ambiances, one commonly referred to as ‘fiesta’, the other as ‘odemba’, both seeking their own sublimity or ideal.
For the very first time, a compilation brings together explicitly the main protagonists of the two bands on the same album, with a collection of their songs recorded in the early sixties for the Surboum African Jazz label, in addition to three tracks made by Kallé’s bands in the late sixties.
The heirs of Joseph Kabasele and Franco Luambo kindly gave permission in Kinshasa to release this original selection on Planet Ilunga about these virtuosi of Congolese Rumba on Planet Ilunga.
Planet Ilunga continues its mission to uncover and highlight the overlooked yet epic achievements in the world of Congolese rumba. This time to tell the most spectacular story of all. This is the story of the creation of Surboum African Jazz, the first Congolese music label founded by a Congolese.
Surboum African Jazz was owned and managed by the best singer of all time, Joseph Kabasele, alias Grand Kallé. The label's catalog during the period 1960–63 is largely dominated by Grand Kallé’s band African Jazz in its various formations. The band, which could rely in 1961 and 1962 on a real dream team of musicians (Docteur Nico, Dechaud, Rochereau, Manu Dibango, Roger Izeidi and Mujos among others), released in this period at least 212 songs. The second largest source of music for the label is Franco’s band O.K. Jazz with at least 136 released songs. Next, with at least 34 released songs comes Manu Dibango with his different formations. These were the first ever published songs of the late Manu Dibango. For this compilation we chose an original selection of songs recorded by African Jazz in 1961 and 1962. We also included a few songs of Dibango’s bands in the final selection, in order to showcase the diversity and universal philosophy of Grand Kallé’s label.
This adventurous music which was recorded in Brussels (Belgium) in the months and years after Congo’s independence is nothing less than post-colonial glory wrapped around popular music. It’s a collection of proud name-dropping songs, political and patriotic lyrics, euphoric declarations of love and explorations towards new and universal impulses and styles. The releases on Surboum African Jazz are for many Congolese the icing on the cake in the iconic history of Congolese rumba. They are a time capsule of the longing of Congolese society to be absorbed in the momentum of the nations. At the same time they are a testimonial of the musical excellence of the African Jazz musicians.
The vinyl edition of this first ever double LP anthology of Surboum African Jazz comes with a large, thoroughly researched and well-illustrated 32-page booklet telling the whole story of this label. Included in the book, among other content, is a text by Alan Brain (director of The Rumba Kings) with never before published information and photos about the epic Table Ronde tour of African Jazz in Belgium, France and The Netherlands in the winter and spring of 1960. This text is the fruit of a research Alan initiated, and then further developed in collaboration with the Congolese author and scholar Manda Tchebwa. Furthermore, you can find in the book a detailed documentation of the recording tours in Brussels in 1961 and 1962, besides a discography of the Surboum African Jazz label and many testimonials of the Congolese community about the first Congolese music label founded by a Congolese.
Egypt’s “official” popular music throughout much of the 20th Century was a complex form of art song steeped in tradition, well-loved by the middle and upper classes, and even accommodating to certain non-Arabic influences. It was highly structured by professional musicians working an established industry centered in the capitol, Cairo.
However, far from the bustling cosmopolitan center of Cairo, north and northwest, in towns like Tanta and Alexandria and extending across the Saharan Desert to the Libyan border, dozens of fully marginalized artists were developing a raw, hybrid shaabi/al-musiqa al-shabiya style of music, supported by smaller upstart, independent labels, including the short-lived but deeply resonant Bourini Records.
Launched in the late 1960s in Benghazi, Libya, Astuanat al-Bourini اسطوانات البوريني (Bourini Records) published some 40 to 50 titles from 1968 to 1975. Bourini released 7-inch 45 RPM singles by 15 artists, all but one of them Egyptian, igniting brief careers for Alexandrian singer Sheikh Amin Abdel Qader and the blind Bedouin legend Abu Bakr Abdel Aziz (aka Abu Abab).
The tracks compiled here comprise a full range of styles covered by the label, while highlighting some of its most gob smacking moments, from Basis Rahouma’s beastly transformation into a growling and barking man-lion by the end of “Yana Alla Nafsa Masouda,” to Reem Kamal’s hopeful-if-bitter handclapping party pivot “Baed Al Yas Yjini,” which descends into an almost Velvet Underground outro-groove of nihilistic dissonance.
All the tracks on this compilation were laid down in stark divergence from the mainstream Egyptian popular music topography of heightened emotions buoyed by lush arrangements. The contrast is most evident in Mahmoud al-Sandidi’s “Ana Mish Hafwatak,” wherein his voice weaves heavily but deftly through a constant accordion drone, and Abu Abab’s “Al Bint al Libya,” a sparse, slow-burning lament with minimal percussion, violin, and Abab’s nephew Hamed Abdel Muna'im Mursi on lyre.
Whereas the Egyptian mainstream was aspirational, attempting to reflect Egyptian culture at its most refined, the performances captured by Bourini were manifestations of everyday life lived by the mostly otherwise ignored masses.
More than half century old, this music has lost none of its urgency, presence, or relevance. We hear these artists as if they’d just joined us in our living room, and not on a stage decades ago surrounded by tens of thousands of long-forgotten acolytes.
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.
A crucial introduction to the 'King of Kikuyu Benga' and the first career-spanning retrospective of the incredible catalogue of the late, great Joseph Kamaru.
17 tracks that run the gamut from vibrant dancefloor chants with high life-esque guitars, to afro funk, drum machine and keyboard driven disco grooves, and folk style laments. The music is raw, immediate, danceable, and packed full of memorable hooks. The incisive lyrics range from protest songs to relationship advice. Joseph Kamaru was an incredibly popular figure in his native Kenya, connecting with everyone from high-powered politicians to the rural and urban working class, and his music deserves a much wider international audience.
Pick a small spot (a point) in front of you (a small knot of wood, a dog down the way). And tightly focus on this spot. And now slowly unfocus your gaze. Widen your gaze. Pan out without moving your eyes. Take it all in.
A smeared and pixelated surface, swelling of contour and light. (Monet’s seepages of light, Altman’s overlapping nomadic dialogue.) Once you have unfocused with little to no center of attention, slowly close your eyes. And please feel very free to notice the light. All of the light that your eyes knocked back as you dilated your focal point. This exercise can be repeated a few times. Unfocusing does not always come easily. And it is probably best to not put too much effort into it. Best to not employ too much pressure.
And we will not put too much pressure on this exercise to help us explain away the humidly, saturatedly psychedelic canopy of moan-‘n-twang and slackelastic-groove of The Dwarfs Of East Agouza’s Sasquatch Landslide.
Mitch Hedberg has a great joke about the Sasquatch: “I think Bigfoot is blurry. That’s the problem. It’s not the photographer’s fault. Bigfoot is blurry! And that’s extra scary to me, because there’s a large out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.”
Sasquatch Landslide. A landslide of hazy configurations. Blurriness, far from a lack of detail, is an embroidering of detail, a horizontal expansion of surface and swarms of light. The name “Sasquatch” derives from the Salish word se'sxac, which means “wild men.” And Sasquatch Landslide is wild. Everything is unravelling. Offset. Décalage. A whole host of slippery tempos and pulses as the organs, guitars and saxophones loiter and lope over a skipping hop of beats, and everything emerges always mid-stream. It is all middle with no halfway point, no dead center, no bullseye. Everything twangs, moans, sweeps, slips, swings, skitters, slides, and grooves out of nowhere. And the almost-human voice with no mother-tongue.
There is something ecstatic (an elatedly miniscule frenzy) going on here but it is pushed beyond the ecstatic: a joyous-grotesque rolling right past trance to dance. Psychedelias appear out of the infra-spaces in between the apparitions and overlapping ‘regimes’ and registers—pushed and squeezed far beyond the recognizable. And these spaces groove joyously hard like some kind of illusive House music, houses completely submerged in molasses. BigFoot-work? (Oh my!) There is not a place to throw your anchor here in the furrowing humidity. That does, and it does, sound like some kind of landslide.
A psychedelic encounter is a brush with the marvel of otherness. The point from which we speak of other, becomes other itself, in an ever-storm of other-production that shreds ideas of knowing and understanding what we think is going on. Time unhinged from the clock. Space unhinged from the frame. An unpinpointing hallucination, a hot get-down, an untethered throw-down of oscillations, fiercely, joyously, exuberantly incomprehensible. Listening to Sasquatch Landslide, a wildly unhinged reverie.
Eric Chenaux and Mariette Cousty
Condat-sur-Ganaveix, February 2025
At 19, Helviofox adds his signature to the batida template that by now seems to have been in existence since forever. Such is the strength of this primordial fountain, a source of rejuvenation. Also within the literal family: Helvio cites brothers Dadifox and Erycox as main influences.
Curiosity for the sound made him go into production by the time he was 13. A couple of years later (2020) he became co-founder of TLS with E8Prod, Alberfox, DiionyG and other mates. His talent fully developed since then, opening a slight detour that became a new path parallel to the main road.
Lively basslines anchor the beat directly lifted from tradition and clearly channeled to the dancefloor. Strong, well rounded grooves, a spot-on sense of timing and tempo, elegant atmospheres, all part of Helvio's notion of arrangement and his perception of dance music boundaries, stretching them just enough to present a challenge but not as far as to disconnect head and feet and risk losing the floor.
This liminal space between experimentation and popularity is both dangerous and attractive. There is no one formula. Precisely why it still retains plenty of fuel for current and future generations to contribute personal visions.
Co-released by Cairo's HIZZ imprint and Heat Crimes, Upper Egypt’s “King of Trobby Music” detonates another singular vision on Raasny—a 9-track suite of bruised street rhythms, electro-shaabi fireworks, and raw emotional voltage, beamed direct from El Minya to the world.
Abosahar has spent the last decade carving out his own micro-genre—Trobby, short for “True Being.” Here it comes into sharpest focus yet: a sound that blurs electro-shaabi, house, techno, trap and pop into dazzling, rough-edged collages, powered by cracked software, busted machines, and the immediacy of lived experience.
Raasny loops wedding-party ecstasy into journeys from Minya’s dusty streets to Cairo’s neon clubs. Tracks like “Bs Ya Baba” and “Shaabi Alarab” fold shaabi’s serrated synth stabs into mutant pulses; “Moled w Samar Haz” and “Moled Altenee” lock into hypnotic folk-ritual cadences; while the title cut “Raasny” surges with an almost devotional intensity, all cracked voices and distorted beats tumbling into the red.
What sets Sahar apart is his refusal of polish: everything is left jagged, overdriven, improvised, alive. His music is inseparable from the weddings, streets, and daily life of Upper Egypt—rooted as much in the dust and electricity of Minya as in the people who move to it.
Raised with little more than a battery-powered radio and homemade instruments fashioned from grass and cardboard, Sahar’s DIY ethos is burned into every second of Raasny. His recordings double as ethnography and autobiography—part diary, part sound-system weapon, part spiritual exorcism.
Already hailed across Cairo’s underground and carried abroad to stages in France, Switzerland and Germany, Sahar’s music still belongs first and foremost to the streets and weddings of Upper Egypt. Raasny makes that clear: this is music of and for the people, loud, ecstatic, and uncontainable.
In his first studio album, legendary singer John Katokye shines an unprecedented light on the rich vocal music of the Banyankore and Bahororo people of Western Uganda, bringing to the fore two singing styles intimately anchored in their century-long practice of cattle herding. When still a young boy, Katokye ran away from home to immerse himself in the traditional songs of his region. Herding cattle in different farms to earn a living, he roamed his homeland singing for several decades, refining his art form one performance at a time. Now approaching his 60th birthday, Katokye has become arguably the most talented and popular traditional singer alive in his region today.
Specializing in the style of ‘ekyeshongoro’, Katokye improvises short poetic sentences, like a long series of Japanese haiku, to convey morsel-sized impressions on the land and history of his people and their cherished cattle. On a regular performance, one or several singers usually back up the meandering of the lead vocalist, overlapping their verses in a continuous vocal flow – at times stretching well beyond ten minutes – transforming the moment into a long meditative experience. Marking the major twists and turns of their river-like performances, all the singers punctually raise their pitch together, steadily increasing the intensity of the current that pulls the audience along their mesmerizing praising chant.
Named after Katokye’s clan, ‘Abanzira’ pays tribute to the moral values and beauty of the women from his lineage, while ‘Ekyeshongoro Kyabakazi’ singles out the merits of the people of Karengo, a village at the heart of the Ankole region where Katokye settled with his loved ones. Throughout this song, Katokye peppers guttural breaths reminiscent of the mooing cows grazing in the hills surrounding his home. To say that the Banyankore and Bahororo people have a deep bond with their cattle might be an understatement in a culture where the generous eyelashes and quiet gaze of calves shape beauty standards, while the subtle taste of smoked milk flavours family reunions and friendly hang outs.
‘Okugamba Ente’ illustrates this intimacy well as Katokye salutes cows’ understanding of human nature, beating with his herding staff the pulse of another form of praise singing deeply rooted in the region, transporting listeners from the meditative river of ekyeshongoro to the dense and wordy waterfall of the ekyevugo style. Gluing words together to recite a dense series of sentences in one breath, ekyevugo singers draw on local myths and history while evoking cattle as signs of beauty and wealth to praise their audience and highlight the quality of the moments lived together at weddings, political rallies, or family gatherings. Acknowledging the praises, the audience usually concludes each flow with a short and vocal ‘eee’ during which the reciter quickly catches breath to draw strength and fire the next verse.
And the talent lives on in the younger generations as the album concludes with ‘Omuhogo gwa Rujeru’, foregrounding Katokye’s acolyte and longtime partner Samuel Rujeru who takes the lead in driving a song usually opening fire sessions, calmly warming up the audience and performers for an evening of storytelling. As they listen to the singers’ whirling melismas and passionate bursts, it’s not unusual for people to raise their arms in the air in imitation of the iconic long horns of their beloved cattle with which they share their lives in the bushy hills of the region. Rendered for the first time in an intimate studio recording session, listeners can now feel the warmth of these amazing vocal styles that for so many years accompanied the lives and dreams of the Banyankore and Bahororo people.
In English, the Xhosa word “useza” means to arouse or elicit a feeling, and it perfectly illuminates Sekuru Chaka Chawasarira’s lifelong practice. The eminent Zimbabwean artist and educator is among the last remaining masters of the matepe, a large mbira-style instrument that’s played with both thumbs and index fingers to expand its rhythmelodic complexity. And on ‘Useza’, he fully demonstrates the matepe’s illusory potential, overdubbing hypnotic sequences to provoke shifting harmonic progressions that ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey labeled “kaleidophony” back in 1970. An ancient art within North-Eastern Zimbabwe’s Shona culture, the matepe is traditionally used in local rituals, where its ambiguous psychoacoustic mirages evoke trance states to aid communication with ancestral spirits. Only half a century ago, ceremonies amongst the Sena Tonga and Kore-Kore peoples would involve up to six musicians, each playing interlocking polyrhythmic sequences. In 2025, the music is threatened with extinction; following decades of vilification from Zimbabwe’s evangelical and pentecostal churches, who associate the rituals with witchcraft, there are fewer than ten master musicians left.
Called the “Mozart of mbira” by composer Keith Goddard, 83-year-old Chawasarira has been developing his relationship with the instrument since he was just a young man. He grew up in a Catholic mission and was dedicated to the church, founding his own choir, but he maintained his connection to Zimbabwean culture by studying the region’s traditional rhythms. Chawasarira’s father had been a prominent drummer, and when Chawasarira was older, working as a teacher at the mission school, he ventured out to observe local mbira ensembles, eventually participating regularly in spirit ceremonies. And although there were tensions between Chawasarira’s work with the church and his interest in controversial folk music, he managed to strike a precarious balance, introducing drums to his Catholic services in the 1960s and even composing a mass for karimba. Chawasarira’s reputation grew steadily; he was invited to Lousville University in the 1990s to represent Zimbabwe at a contemporary composition festival, and his youth ensembles helped popularize Shona mbira traditions not just at home, but around the world.
Today’s evangelical Christians are less tolerant than the Catholic church however, with fundamentalist preachers blaming mbira music for all manner of tragedy. Chawasarira remains undeterred; living in Chitungwiza, he builds matepes and karimbas and tutors children, and ‘Useza’ is a celebration of his years of experience, a way for the maestro to preserve his repertoire for future generations. Recorded at the dead of night while the rest of the township is sound asleep, the album reproduces the mesmerizing sound of a Shona ritual by overlaying discrete fractal sequences filled with haunting overtones and buzzing rhythms. Chitungwiza works alone, harmonizing with himself and chanting over the weightless polyrhythms to create musical illusions that sound different depending on where the listener might be positioned. It’s a technique that’s been approached by various minimalist composers and avant-garde explorers in the 20th century and beyond, and Chitungwiza goes straight to the source, skillfully substantiating kaleidophony and safeguarding Zimbabwe’s heritage.
With its new project focusing on the songs of fishermen in Portugal, the FLEE platform attempts to combine in-depth anthropological research with a hybrid contemporary and artistic reflection on an important facet of Portuguese social and cultural history.
Through working songs from the 1940s, 60s and 80s recorded in the Algarve region, the project attempts to document the history of these fishermen, the nature of their hardships and often exploitative conditions, as well as their gradual encounter with important economic and political changes that affected the country in the 1970s. More than observing the fishermen directly, the project also investigates the birth of ethnomusicology in the country through the work of the French ethnomusicologist Michel Giacometti, in a period when the country gradually began to "discover itself" and its regional cultures in a reflexive way.
Mount Athos, known as the «Holy Mountain,» is a monastic peninsula in northeastern Greece, central to Eastern Orthodox monasticism for over a millennium. Its twenty monasteries house around 2,000 monks dedicated to prayer and worship, which songs have echoed across the Aegean Sea for centuries, heard only by visiting pilgrims, isolated from conventional time and global events. After several years of research, and several visits to the retired community, we are happy to present our new project «Athos : Echoes from the Holy Mountain» dedicated to this liturgic music and repertoire that seems to be evolving outside the usual boundaries of time and space. Rooted in Byzantine chant, this a cappella tradition essential to monastic life featuring intricate yet serene melodies designed to facilitate prayer and contemplation, using a system of modes and scales to create a meditative atmosphere.
Trans-disciplinary, this effort of documentation also comprehends an artistic re-interpretation aspect inviting contemporary Greek and foreign artists to reflect on the subject. A musical compilation which captures original field recordings from the 1960s and from today capturing the essence of liturgical music on Mount Athos, but also new compositions inspired by them by artists such as Holy Tongue (UK), Jay Glass Dubs (GR), Prins Emanuel & Inre Kresten Grupp (SWE), Jimi Tenor (FI), Gilb’r (FR), Daniel Paleodimos (GR), Esma & Murat Ertel (TUR) and Organza Ray (GR/US).
A trilingual book in English, Greek and French, featuring essays, articles, photographs and artistic comissions reflecting around the theme giving a voice to contributors such as , Stratos Kalafatis, Theodore Psychoyos, Tefra90, Father Damaskinos Ulkinuora, Prof. Thomas Apostolopoulos, Makar Tereshin, Phaedra Douzina-Bakalaki, Michelangelo Paganopoulos and Alberto Cameroni. The release of the book and the record will be followed by a cycle of exhibitions and conferences, deploying FLEE’s year-long research on Mount Athos, as well as its numerous commissioned artworks.
Afro-jazz ancestral healing at the crossroads of tradition and tomorrow
Matsuli Music is proud to announce the first vinyl reissue of Philip Tabane’s Sangoma ("Spiritual Healer") since its 1978 release. Remastered from the original tapes with lacquers cut by Frank Merrit and pressed on 180g heavyweight vinyl at Pallas in Germany, this definitive edition re-asserts the power of one of South Africa’s landmark recordings. Featuring new liner notes by cultural critic Kwanele Sosibo and artwork restoration by Siemon Allen, Sangoma returns in full force through an extended Malombo line-up, fronted by Tabane's spellbinding guitar - ancestral, timeless, and unbound.
Philip Tabane (1934–2018), the mercurial guitar genius of South African music, forged a sound that was as rooted in the spirit world as it was in daily life. With the Malombo Jazzmen of the 1960s, Tabane disrupted Western notions of “jazz,” bringing the resonant rhythm of cowhide malombo drums into the foreground. While outsiders and the uninitiated often reached for labels like “primitive yet sophisticated,” Tabane and his collaborators named it more truthfully: “music of the spirit.”
By the time of Sangoma, Tabane stood at a crossroads. Fresh from a period of three years’ touring in the United States where he graced the Newport Jazz Festival, and played alongside Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders and others, he brushed off comparisons with characteristic self-assurance: “No, I don’t play like Miles. Miles plays like me.” Back home in South Africa, and with a newly signed international distribution deal with WEA Records, he harnessed this momentum into a larger band setting, capturing a rare intensity.
The result was Sangoma—an album that bridges contradictions: expansive yet intimate, celebratory yet haunted by exile and return. Tracks such as “Sangoma,” “Hi Congo,” and “Keya Bereka” are not simply performances but living testaments, songs that would remain in his repertoire for decades. Unlike the moody, immersive character of much of his work, here Tabane is on the move—urgent, restless, uncontainable. As he announces on the second track, “Maskanta wa tsamaya” (“something that kicks ass”).
More than four decades on, Sangoma is both an historical document and a timeless invocation. From his home in Mamelodi to the world and back again, Tabane’s spiritual healing endures—raw, electric, and unbowed.
Our upcoming 33rd release focuses on one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from Beirut’s Armenian community: Ara Kekedjian. We started being interested in Armenian music from Beirut many years ago, after seeing the records pop up in shops and markets, and DJs like Ernesto Chahoud playing them at parties. From the get go Ara Kekedjian was our favorite. From his infectious arrangements, his catchy melody lines to his dapper looks: Born in 1946 in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon, Ara became a central figure in the Armenian pop scene of the 1960s and 70s. With his mix of Armenian rhythms, hard-hitting drums, funky guitars, and charismatic stage presence, he carved out a bold sound in Estradayin (Armenian) pop rock.
In the 1970s, the Beirut suburb Bourj Hammoud became a hub of creativity and it was home to countless labels, record shops, and venues. Among this vibrant scene, Ara’s records stand out for their energy and inventiveness. Unlike many classically trained singers of his generation, Ara’s delivery was new and playful. Tracks like Seta Seta and Ghapama showcase his talent for turning familiar melodies into driving, dance-floor grooves. His performances across Beirut and the region often electrifying crowds with theatrical guitar and organ solos cemented his reputation as a showman and innovator.
Compiled by Habibi Funk in collaboration with Darone Sassounian of Rocky Hill Records (who first introduced many to Armenian sounds with his Silk Road compilation). Thanks to the support of Ara’s extended family in Lebanon and Los Angeles, the album is fully licensed, with all profits split 50/50 with his estate.
led by guitarist seiji hano, the jazz group om released only one album — solar wind, a landmark work that stands as one of the greatest achievements in japanese ethnic jazz. now, this masterpiece is finally being reissued.
their sound, seemingly a response from japan to ecm artists such as oregon and codona active during the same period, is refined yet imbued with a distinctly japanese sense of wabi-sabi — melancholic, nostalgic, and deeply resonant.
from “windmill,” featured on studio mule’s compilation midnight in tokyo vol.2, to every other track, solar wind is a flawless album with not a single weak moment — a true masterpiece of japanese jazz.