Ssewakiryanga James Jr., also known as SSEWASSEWA, is a Ugandan multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, innovator and educator. He leads his audiences into the soulful African music culture with traditional instruments, songs and stories from his homeland, weaving these traditions together with a modern and global sound. Ssewa Ssewa's music is about social and global issues, diversity, economic development and empowerment. Ssewa Ssewa's music is a cross-cultural marriage between Uganda, Africa and the world. He seeks to promote Ugandan traditions while modernizing and interweaving them with other international genres to renew the spirit of his indigenous culture. The janzi is a Ugandan instrument created and designed by Ssewa Ssewa. It has 22 strings, eleven on each of it's two long, wooden necks. The strings on the left-hand neck are tuned in the diatonic scale, and the strings on the right to the pentatonic scale.

Arsen Petrosyan presents Hokin Janapar (my soul's journey), an album with a diverse collection of songs from many eras and genres of Armenia's historic timeline. Arsen has collaborated with Steve Hackett (Genesis), Emirati composer Ihab Darwish, and oudist Omar Bashir among others. He has performed throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. As a solo artist, Petrosyan has also toured extensively in North America and performed on BBC Persia. "Nothing short of exquisite." (Gapplegate Music) "Arsen's duduk playing sounds wonderful. It has a special magic." (Steve Hackett) "... one of the potential heirs to the duduk throne." (Deep Roots)

Throughout Africa, the drum is the most ancient and certainly the most widely played instrument in African history. Having a far deeper bearing on life than the Western concept of percussion, the drum and all its offshoots and variations is an integral part of the heritage of all African cultures. There is a huge variety of such instruments. The sacred big drums were the most valuable property of any tribe. Conquering kings would make such drums a priority to capture, as this would break the spirit of the conquered. In many creation stories, the drum plays a vital role. Gods and chiefs, wise men and those who can talk to the ancestors, all use the drum as a medium. These recordings are performed by master African drumming groups; the El Hadj Ensemble, Ipelegeng Group, African Works, Soweto Ensemble and Tirani Club. All tracks are performed in the differing styles of cultures and communities from all over Africa, in some cases with added instruments appropriate to those cultures, making for an exemplary percussive exploration of Africa.

Hugo D�az counts as one of the greatest bandoneon players of his or any generation. On this album he plays tangos as well as baroque classics by the likes of Bach and Frescobaldi, all with the brilliance and flair that became his hallmark. D�az was an outstanding technician and through determination and discipline, together with profound feelings, he was able to feel and convey all the facets of the tango in all it's multicolored nuances. He played the music with an extraordinary depth of expression and temperament - even the softest notes and the silences. The bandoneon is the soul of the tango. In Hugo Diaz's hands it lends itself to expressing a rainbow of feelings and emotions in a brilliant variety of styles.

This new release is both a valuable cultural document and a rare collectors' item. It features historical, unrehearsed live field recordings of traditional music made in Thailand in 1973 by ethnomusicologist Deben Bhattacharya. As in most countries of Asia, Thai music consists of two distinct features: the folk songs and dances which belong to the village traditions, and the piphat orchestra with it's complex structure, no doubt developed and played for the elite, both in villages and towns. The village music in the main is melodic, with songs and dances accompanied by woodwind and stringed instruments, as well as drums and metal percussion instruments for providing the rhythm. The piphat band, on the other hand, employs a rich collection of percussion instruments belonging to the metallophone and the xylophone families and played with drums, gongs, and cymbals. These are divided into two sections, one providing a melody and the other the rhythm. Sometimes the orchestra is led by a single woodwind instrument, the pi nai, which belongs to the oboe family, like the Indian shehnai. The music is played in a diatonic scale with seven equidistant notes but without any semitones between the steps of the octave. This album begins with the music of the piphat orchestra played for Ramakien, the epic which represents the political and the cultural history of Thailand since ancient times

The Athenians were formed in 1977 and enjoyed continuous success for more than thirty years together. A seemingly unending schedule of concerts boosted and maintained their popularity, particularly in central Europe where they constantly filled concert halls. They not only rendered masterful interpretations of Theodorakis’ music, but were equally well acquainted with the compositions of other Greek composers such as Stavros Xarchakos, Manos Hatzidakis, Manos Loizos, etc. Their musical repertoire encompassed contemporary songs and Greek popular music that has come into existence as original folk music and has been enriched by modern elements and thus developed into this new genre. Here we present a selection of their Greek dance and Syrtaki songs.

Serbia is a land-locked country in the southeastern European Balkans region, bordering on Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. The Branko Krsmanovic National Folk Ballet was founded in 1945 as one of the departments of the Artistic Association of the University of Belgrade. The Folk Ballet acquired its first recognition at the Yugoslav Youth Festival in 1948. In 1949, with the arrival of Mr. Branko Markovic, leading dancer and choreographer of the Belgrade Opera House, the ensemble started to work on the artistic elaboration of the rich national folk heritage. The Branko Krsmanovic Folk Music Orchestra was founded two years later in 1951. This album is a superb, lively and vivacious album of traditional music from the different regions of Serbia.

Martinique, an overseas region of France, lies in the heart of the Caribbean archipelago as part of the Lesser Antilles between Dominica in the North and St. Lucia in the South. Columbus landed on the island in 1502 and named it Martinique. Until then, the island had been populated by Carib Indians who called it Matinino. Martinique was claimed by France in 1635 and officially annexed in 1674. The island is a mix of two main cultures, with the African at it's rots and the Western contributing increasingly. Music and dance have always been omnipresent in the life of the Antilles people. Music accompanies almost all day-to-day activities. It provides the rhythm for work in the fields, cutting of sugarcane, etc. The drum is one of the island's main instruments and the tambouye (drum player) enjoys special status. The Ballet Exotic du Robert is a non-profit company established in 1990. The group's goal is to preserve the folklore of Martinique, to promote Martinique through it's dances, and to share with people everywhere the pleasure of traditional dance. Their repertoire includes all the standards of Martinique music from ballroom dancing including the beguine, mazurka and the creole waltz, Caribbean beats such as merengue, compass, etc, to drum dances like the bele, bele pitche, and others.

Glaschu is the new studio album from urban Gael, now highland resident, Mary Ann Kennedy. Dedicated to Glasgow, the album features songs and poetry celebrating life in Glasgow from the past and present. Mary Ann’s debut solo album, ‘An Dàn’, confirmed her place as a composer and songwriter as well as performer, released on ARC to critical acclaim in July 2017. She writes: “I grew up in the southside of Glasgow, in a city rich in languages and cultures, and as part of Scottish Gaels’ biggest urban diaspora. It was something of a strange and wonderful upbringing for me and my sister, feeling part of a big community but at the same time- in terms of peers at least- sometimes feeling like the only Gaels in the village. Things change, and it’s a joy to see today at the bottom of the street where I grew up, one of Glasgow’s three Gaelic schools. You can take the girl out of Glasgow, but never Glasgow out of the girl, and in the spirit of Gaels’ eternal need to sing about home, this is my Gaelic love-song for the city in all its guises- the voices of arrivals in search of a new life and of those, like me, born and bred there with Gaelic as our first language.”

This new release features a wide and varied collection of Klezmer music, gathered from across the Americas and Europe. These songs represent a kaleidoscope of styles and instrumentations, from ethnic to jazzy and everything in between. The music exudes a special kind of charm, and a kind of melancholic exuberance, at once happy and sad, a kind of feel that only Klezmer can bring. Featured ensembles on this release include The Burning Bush, who specialize in music of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions, London-based ensemble She’koyokh, Canadian trio From Both Ends of the Earth, and many more. This release was compiled by world music specialist Diz Heller.

An interesting and captivating blend of African and Indian sounds. Ravi explores new musical horizons and soundscapes with world renowned santoor player Tarun Bhattacharya, Ravi Shankar's tabla player Bikram Ghosh, legendary double-bass player Danny Thompson and master of Egyptian tabla Hossam Ramzy.

Srdjan Beronja is a Serbian percussionist, musicologist, composer and writer. He left his homeland of Novi Sad after the bombing of Serbia in 1999, followed by extreme socio-political changes in 2000. In 2001 he travelled to India where he studied the Indian tabla in the city of Varanasi, as a disciple of Vikas Tripathi along with the son of the tabla maestro Pt. Samta Prasa. He later travelled to the Balkans, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinents before moving to Seattle, USA where he started experimenting with chamber music. Through these extensive and colorful experiences, Srdjan released his first album "The Sounds of Varanasi" on ARC Music in 2014. On this new album, Srdjan returns to the Balkans, India and the Middle East and captures intimate recordings of the traditional music of these regions. "This album is a beautifully recorded and orchestrated soundscape" - Sacred Hope. "An unusual and unique record, very immediate and alluring. Recommended!" - J.S.

She’Koyokh, award-winning klezmer and Balkan music ensemble, present vibrant and exhilarating music, straight from London’s melting pot: soulful Eastern European Jewish, Balkan, Turkish and Gypsy music. Performing “the best klezmer & Balkan music in Britain” (Evening Standard), She’Koyokh have spent fifteen years absorbing the rich folk music traditions of Eastern & Southern Europe and Turkey. The band’s evolution spans the origins of busking at East London’s Columbia Rd Flower Market to performing at WOMAD and Sziget festivals, recording live for BBC radio, and playing venues from the Southbank Centre to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Masters of the genre, She’Koyokh’s repertoire includes Bulgarian oros, Serbian kolos, Bosnian love songs, ballads from the mountains of southwest Turkey, as well as rip-roaring klezmer music.

Macedonian bellydance music has a distinct ''Balkan'' flavour with its typical instrumentation blended with contemporary instruments - modern, exciting, quirky, and very ''bellydanceable''!

As the daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants, Hilda Bronsteinf ell in love with the Yiddish language at an early age. She discovered several of the songs on this album as achild, when she heard them performed at London's last Yiddish Theatre, the Grand Palais. In 2003, she discovered that there had been a huge revival of interest in Yiddish music and language and decided to return to her long-forgotten first love. The songs on this release form a vibrant and colorful patchwork, each piece capturing some facet of the lives and culture of East European Jewry - they are the expression of the very soul of a people from it's darkest hours to mometns of ecstatic joy. They originate from a number of sources. For example, three fo teh greatest Yiddish poets are represented here as well as folk songs with unknown composers.