Yeli singing, from northern Congo. Meandering, polyphonic counterpoint, with a sophisticated interlacing of sounds and motifs, and complex yodelling techniques.
‘When something grave occurs, when someone fall sick, when the hunt is bad, or when death strikes, it must be that the forest herself is asleep and unable to watch over her children… We have to wake her up. And we do this with singing…’

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

‘Cantu a chiterra’, in which competing singers take turns showing off vocal daring, breath control, endurance and style, in settings of nineteenth century poetry.

‘The geomungo is a six-string zither with sixteen frets. The resonating board is made of paulownia wood. Its origins trace back to the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (37 BCE to 668 CE), which dominated the territory of present-day North Korea and a large part of Manchuria.
‘The geomungo makes dramatic sounds, through the friction created by the plectrum striking the strings, or the rustling created by subtle movements of the left hand over the strings.
‘Here Lee Jae-hwa performs the suites Geomungo Hoesang and Geomungo Sanjo, in the respective styles of the south and north of the Korean peninsula: distinct forms, techniques and rhythms, with a shared subtlety, sensitivity and emotional power.’

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.

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…

Work songs, music and songs about everyday life, or the calendar, or perhaps to run alongside ritual feasts, with guitar, mandolin, accordion, guimbarde, tambourine, bagpipe and reed flute.

Refined, improvisatory, endangered traditional music for a quartet of two-stringed spike-fiddle, zither, two lutes.

Exquisite music for shamisen lute, koto zither, and shakuhachi flute, running back more than a hundred years, to the end of the Edo era. Expertly performed by this accomplished trio of graduates of the Tokyo National Conservatory.

Kushal Das is a master of the surbahar, a kind of bass sitar, with long sustain, ideally suited to this profound and elevated, tricky and subtle, darkest-night raga, recorded in concert at the Radio France Auditorium in Paris.

Playing the xun, an ancient ocarina, the xiao, a vertical flute, and the qin zither, half the time with ‘amateur’ ensemble or zheng zither accompaniment. A last exponent in 1996, haunting and poised… dead now.

The ravanne is a large drum — a goatskin stretched over a wooden frame — played with the hands, emblematic of the Creole cultural heritage on this island in the Indian Ocean: the music here is fabulous.

From the north-eastern provinces, mixing Spanish, African and Guarani influences (and long derided for it), a distant cousin of tango. Guitar and six-string guitarron, accordion and bandoneon, double bass, singing.

Warm, nostalgic, stirring settings for voice, guitar, accordion and violin. Knowing nothing, we can hear Jacques Brel and Jake Thackray.

A master of the sato (a bowed tambur or long-necked lute held vertically) joined by Tajik singer Ozoda Ashurova in this beautiful, haunting, little-known court music. Plus doyra drum and dotar lute.

Bele is an African folk drumming and singing tradition running back to slavery days. Mondesir leads five singers, with two percussionists, on tambour and tibwa.