Haydee Alba’s 1990 debut album — emotional and poetic from the off, already steeped in tradition — following the evolution of the form over its nineteen tracks. ‘An artist’s job is to make her public dream.’

Griot music with delicate dambararou lute; ritual possession songs with gogue fiddle and gon and karou drums; and a women’s choir.

Brilliant, jacking, extended, improvisatory, ancient dance music played at the initiation of diviners (drugged with jolonthi, to ward off spells) on a twelve-blade xylophone with calabash resonators.

Pinpeat and mohori music — courtly and abstract versus nocturnal and soulful — performed by a female choir and the orchestra of the Royal Palace.
Differently pitched xylophones with bamboo blades suspended above a sound-box; sets of horizontal gongs; oboes; two big buffalo-skin kettledrums.

Fantastic music. Flutes made of bamboo, shell, clay, wood, bark, horn or reed, along with breathing songs, transverse horns, harp, xylophone, drums and percussion, in various lineups.

Polyrhythmic vocal and percussion music for dancing, performed by women, from the Cape Verdean island of Santiago.

Delicate, quietly profound 1959-60 chamber recordings of old masters, on a dozen instruments, notably the guqin zither, the pipa lute and the xiao flute.

Gaitas music, for flutes and alegre, llamador and tambora drums.

The lyra viol in heart-tugging, rug-cutting songs from the eastern Mediterranean, brilliantly performed by Stelios Petrakis.

Elegant, serene, new-wave, profoundly tuneful playing, with accompaniment from Abhijit Banerjee’s tabla and Sudipta Remy’s tampura.

From the south-east corner, with uneasy Estonian identity, and ties to Russia via the Orthodox Church — striking singing about everything, in different lineups, with recordings from the 1930s till up to date.

Dramatic, intricate singing from South West Ethiopia — non-verbal, the voice turned inside out, used like an instrument — sometimes with lyre, riffing till death do us part, clapping, flutes from space, bells, and other accompaniments.

Polyphonic song — a kind of broken, yodelling counterpoint — accompanied by drums, sticks, sanza, vegetal trumpets, hand-clapping.

Virtuoso performances recorded in 1972 and al fresco in 1970, mixing together works from the nineteenth century heartlands of the instrument, and rocking Mande tunes of the 1960s and 70s.

Invigorating, soulful music; warmly recommended.
The langeleik is a box zither with one melodic string, and three to eight accompaniment strings or drones. Gunvor was taught by her grandmother. Here she is joined occasionally by two violinists and a a second zither.
The compositions are mostly traditional and centuries-old. The drones draw you in deep; the melodies take flight. Rapturous waltzes, giddying dance music, aching laments, sublime evocations of nature…

Following in the footsteps of Bela Bartok across Transdanubia, the Highlands, the Great Plain: marvellous recordings over thirty years of hurdy-gurdy, cymbalum, shepherd’s pipe, bagpipe, popular song.

Sundanese ritual music for the goddess of rice and the ancestral spirits, performed by Pupung Supena and Tahya — tarawangsa fiddle with ostinato accompaniment on kacapi zither.