“This is a unique corpus of recordings, issued for the first time, made by the man who placed Quebec on the cultural map of the French-speaking world. The avowed paragon of Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel. Indeed Felix Leclerc overturned song in an incredible manner. Apart from his poetic elegance, he is the exemplifying trustee of the chansonnier, the song-writer who plays his own music. In 1950, only Charles Trenet and the Roche-Aznavour duo could boast as such.” Claude Colombini-Fremeaux

Fascinating evidence of mystic Afro-Jamaican religious practices inherited from the days of slavery. Accompanied by these songs, drums and trances, ancestral spirits took possession of initiates in authentic ceremonies which inspired fiction’s zombies and voodoo… These rare sounds probably come closest to the legendary bamboulas held in New Orleans’ Congo Square in the 19th century: the true origins of Negro spirituals, jazz and gospel. The deep African roots of reggae and Rastafarianism are revealed here and include the earliest Rasta ritual recordings ever made. Deciphered and clarified by Bruno Blum, this Revivalist spiritual music is supplemented by Mento pieces and some savoury traditional songs. Patrick FReMEAUX

In the world of music, Ale Möller is a much-traveled man. + With an array of instruments he has wandered far and wide, in space and time. + In the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, guitar in hand, he sang his way through Europe, strengthening the common bonds of youth across the frontiers. + With his trumpet he explored the nightlife sounds of New Orleans, the bebop dives of downtown Manhattan. + And then with his treasured bouzouki, among the mountains of Greece, he came to the realization that he must seek his roots, his identity, in the traditions of his native land. + All these impressions, together with his own quest for a traditional folk-music sound, filled Ale’s musical crucible, to be cast in the form of this first solo record of his very special brand of folk music. + The music heard here, recorded in 1986, is oh-so Swedish yet at the same time reflective of the broad musical experience of his travels.

A record with Swedish folk music – played on a bagpipe from Dalecarlia! + This was unheard of when these recordings were made during 1982/83. + The bagpipe being an instrument with Swedish traditions is a rather unknown fact for most people today. + On this album Per Gudmundson plays on a type of bagpipe that could still be heard at the beginning of the last century. + The specific instrument on this album is based on two older bagpipes from the Western part of Dalecarlia and is a result of a collaboration between Per and the instrument builder Leif Eriksson. + Here we can hear the bagpipe alone, but also together with vocals (Agneta Stolpe) and other folk instruments like the violin, the lira, the zither and the harmonica. + All played by well-known Swedish folk musicians like Magnus and Ola Bäckström, Jan Winter and Erik and Ingrid Ingels. + The bagpipe is used in a more contemporary context, inspired by modern Swedish folk music. + Extra tracks are added on this release.

In 2016 Emma Ahlberg Ek realized a project idea with the help of a collaboration grant from the Swedish Performing Arts Agency. The project was to put together an ensemble and create a musical and narrative show about the colorful violinist Hillevi �berg (1897-1979). Hillevi participated in 1916, as the only woman (and only 18 years old!) in a fiddlers competition organized in Sundsvall. She impressed the jury with her powerful violin playing, and was awarded the third place position. Emma Ahlberg Ek decided to try and find out more about her. After searching for a few years, Emma had constructed a full view of Hillevi, and how she came to spend her entire life in service of music: Classical violin training in Germany led to employment as a cinema musician in Boden, later a musical bakery business and the first violin section in an orchestra in Kiruna. The show has been performed nine times since 2016, and has been met with great enthusiasm. And now, in anticipation of future performances, it is high time to record and release the music itself, consisting of Emma's original compositions, as well as arrangements of Hillevi's dance tunes.

Swedish Jazz History- a series of album compilations released by Caprice Records- chronicles jazz in Sweden with representative recordings up until the 1970s. Volume 11 is a comprehensive set of four albums with a total of 62 tracks, including some unissued items. It presents a vast selection of music by artists such as Alice Babs, Monica Dominique, Nannie Porres, Monica Zetterlund, Lars Gullin, Georg Riedel, Bernt Rosengren, The Swedish Radio Jazz Group, and more. Many sources of studio and live recordings are used from different locations in Sweden. This album reflects Swedish jazz of the 1970s, characterized by internationalization and intercultural influences. Foreign Sweden-based artists like Red Mitchell, Maffy Falay and Okay Temiz worked with Swedish musicians. For instance, with its Turkish influences, the Sevda group was a forerunner in what would later develop into the World Music genre. The 1970s was a musically rich decade where older jazz coexisted with new, freely improvised forms, influenced by both American and European avant-garde artists. Different kinds of Fusion, mixing jazz with other styles and expressions, became popular, such as Jazz Rock/ Jazz Funk.

When we use the terms "Greek traditional," "Grek folk," or "Greek demotic" music today, we mean songs and tunes coming from the past, from areas that were home to Christian farmers, shepherds and sailors during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Mostly- though not exclusively- Greek speaking, these populations lived, as was normal then, in close proximity with other ethnic, linguistic, or religious groups. In these areas, some of which now form modern-day Greece, the oral tradition of folk song and ecclesiastical music were the only available forms of musical expression. This album is the highly anticipated re-release of the 1980 album of the same name, extended with tracks licensed from the Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association. Domna Samiou (1928-2012) was a charismatic and multifaceted personality who dedicated her life to a quest which is now synonymous with her name: the preservation, dissemination and teaching of Greek traditional "folk" music.

This sparkling collection of folk dances from Norway and Sweden, offset by two Estonian chorales and three improvisations, comes from two of the finest practitioners of this kind of material: Gunnar Idenstam, playing on the new Klais organ of Kristiansand Cathedral in southern Norway, and Erik Rydvall, on the nyckelharpa, the keyed folk fiddle of Sweden. The combination of rhythmic vigor, the harmonic ambiguity of Scandinavian folk music and the huge range of instrumental color gives these tunes – all in spontaneous, semi-improvised performances – an irresistible and immediate appeal. Gunnar Idenstam, concert organist, composer and folk musician, is known throughout the world for his virtuouso playing, stunning improvisations and untraditional and original take on organ music. Gunnar Idenstam aims to expand his audience's appreciation of the organ and to transcend the limitations of genre. Born in 1983, Erik Rydvall began playing violin at the age of five, before at last discovering the nyckelharpa at 18. Between 2003 and 2008 Erik studied nyckelharpa at the Eric Sahlström Institute in Tobo and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Meeting the legendary nyckelharpa pioneers, Johan Hedin and Olov Johansson as well as other musicians such as Magnus Zetterlund and Anders Löfberg persuaded Erik to begin the development of his own approach.

The Lark in the Morn and other folksongs and ballads

Enjoy 30 selections of Appalachian, Shape-Note, Shaker, Gospel, bluegrass, and other traditional folk music from 1930's America, recorded LIVE at the 2019 Christmas Revels in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “2019’s Christmas Revels isn’t just set in the American heartland, it comes from the American heart.” (Boston Globe) “I can’t recall a Christmas Revels production better than this one, timed to recall the spirit of the holiday and the traditions that unite us as a nation.” (Iris Fanger, Cambridge Chronicle) “Revels’ exploration of the roots of American music covers a wide geographic swath from New England to the South. The musicians are top-notch...Carolyn Saxon slays with her vocals!” (Broadway World)

At the Foot of Yonders Mountain

Ravens

Ode & Ballade by Skye Consort & Emma Björling brings stories of medieval saints and sacred wells, fair maidens outsmarting presumptuous knights, beautiful or boisterous drinking songs, thieves meeting their fate, heartbreaking love songs, groovy dance tunes, and celebrations of the return of Spring. The album combines elements from world music and classical traditions to narrate poems, tales, legends, and sonnets from Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, France and more.

Skye Consort was formed in 1999 to bring an art-music aesthetic to folk music from different world traditions. They have performed and toured extensively with various collaborators and released seven full-length albums. In November and December of 2018, in collaboration with Emma Björling, Skye Consort created a new repertoire sourced from Scandinavian, Québecois, and Celtic roots. Skye Consort & Emma Björling won the OPUS award for Best World Music Album 2019.

Listen to Ode & Ballade wherever you stream your music.

The Kraken Consort was born in 2021 from the imagination of three musicians, friends and colleagues: theorbist Bruno Helstroffer, soprano Chantal Santon Jeffery and tenor Robert Getchell, a Celtic music enthusiast. They share a taste for traditional oral and improvised music, and were keen to team up with instrumentalists with in-depth experience of traditional music: Ronan Pellen (cistre), Brewen Favrau (piper), Sylvain Barou, David Lombardi and Laurene Durantel. For their debut album, Kraken Consort revisit the Irish and Scottish musical tradition.

Traditional Sicilian culture, from its language to various coded systems of myth and ritual, from its techniques of expression to their practiced forms, is the result of a stratification of elements attributable to each of the diverse ethnic stocks which in turn dominated this great island, located in the center of the Mediterranean (Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Islamic Berbers, Normans, Swabians, Frenchmen, Spaniards). The forms and styles of its traditional music, affected by these processes of hybrid growth, were also in one way or another marked by the archetypes of Sicily’s successive civilizations. As Ottavio Tiby stated, 'People listened to Greek nomos, the Byzantine hymn, the Arab maqam, the courtly troubadour ballad and the lied of the Minnesänger down to the opulent polyphony of the 16th-17th century!' (Studio introduttivo to the Corpus di musiche popolari siciliane by Alberto Favara, Palermo 1957).

This CD presents an anthology of the most remarkable vocal and instrumental typologies of traditional Sicilian music.

In 2012, Emilia Amper’s solo debut disc Trollfageln (‘The Magic Bird) was a revelation. Not only to those who had never before heard the silvery sound of the nyckelharpa (‘keyed fiddle’), but also for the way Emilia on it combined her roots in Scandinavian folk music with her very own and individual voice. Lux, her new album, confirms the promise of the earlier disc- a selection of her own compositions and traditional Swedish and Norwegian tunes which she performs solo and with a group of musician friends in various constellations. With its roots stretching back to medieval Europe, the nyckelharpa almost died out in the middle of the twentieth century, but has made a remarkable comeback and is attracting an increasing number of performers in Sweden and around the world. Firmly grounded in Swedish traditional music, Emilia Amper has also worked with musicians from many other backgrounds, and can be regarded as an important ambassador for her instrument, but also for the inquisitive and open spirit which characterizes modern folk music.

Heading back on the road after the COVID-19 Pandemic, we brought (almost) an hour's worth of new material along with us: Evolve & Travel is that music. We’re releasing this album on the heels of our tenth year together as a group, and Evolve & Travel is a culmination of lessons we learned along the way. From an unlikely group of students who just happened to be in string quartet formation, to an indescribable smush of string quartet, folk band, and singer-songwriter(s), over the years we have grown into ourselves as an ensemble, as composers, and as equal partners in this wild venture that is Invoke.

Evolve & Travel showcases that journey, focusing on the strengths of Karl and Nick as songwriters/composers and letting us as a group completely abandon any semblance of formality and tradition to focus on what makes us Invoke – best friends who make the music they love to hear.

In the late-classical era, an Edinburgh publisher commissioned the most famous composers in continental Europe to orchestrate traditional Scottish folk songs in their original English. A lush sampling of this music is performed here by Makaris, a new early-music super-group headed by soprano Fiona Gillespie. (Olde Focus)

Marius Klovning is already an experienced guitarist, and is often seen on stage at jazz clubs around Norway with one of his many bands. Late Nights, Early Mornings is his second solo album with the guitar in focus, recorded during corona times with producer and technician Hans Martin Austestad. The album is a collection of personal, melodic gems mainly performed on various guitars. You will first and foremost hear Klovning's exquisite melodic taste and his love for folk tunes, blues and the singer/songwriter tradition. The songs vary from cheerful, fast melodies to longer, atmospheric and dreamy sequences. Late Nights, Early Mornings is a beautiful and well-played album that explores a number of genres and moods with the guitar as a guide.

Debutants Ljus och lykta (meaning "Light and lantern") is a fresh breath of air on the Swedish music scene. A versatile musical experience, Ljus och lykta performs all kinds of traditional Swedish songs - ballads, love songs, shanties and more. While their music is firmly rooted in the Scandinavian tradition, Ljus och lykta also finds inspiration in other musical genres, such as bluegrass and British folk. At the core of the Ljus och lykta sound, we find the crisp, edgy voices of Klara von Huth and Annika Hammer. Vega Nordkvist’s forceful fiddling and Anton Larsson’s groovy guitar provide a steady backbone for the intertwining voices.

John Metcalfe, who arranges songs for big names such as Coldplay, Simple Minds and The Pretenders, has produced albums with Peter Gabriel and has been touring for decades as a member of the Duke Quartet. Now he releases his debut album on the Neue Meister label. Metcalfe has always been surrounded by music. As a child, he would listen to his father sing opera, before a love of Kraftwerk and Joy Division led to a stint as a drummer in a high school band. But it was a move to Manchester that really accelerated his development as an artist, and led to him finding his true calling. Joining cult band The Durutti Column, then signed to legendary label Factory Records, brought him into the orbit of Tony Wilson and the Hacienda, formative events that would help foster his renegade spirit. Unimpressed with the strictures demanded by the classical recording industry, Metcalfe persuaded Wilson to launch the ground-breaking Factory Classical Label, aimed at unearthing exciting - and unconventional - new British talent. It was here that Metcalfe found a home, and the group that would come to define his musical career; the Duke Quartet. For nearly 30 years, they've existed at the vanguard of contemporary British music, innovating and delighting in equal measure. Working with world-renowned artists across the entire cultural spectrum, from pop, dance, film, TV, and theatre, Metcalfe honed his arranging and producing skills; he's now one of the UK's most sought after arrangers, regularly working with some of biggest names in music. As a solo artist, Metcalfe explores electro-classical soundscapes and the boundaries between genres. His finely tuned compositions are neat yet grand in scale, both in terms of sound and the conceptual ideas underpinning them. Absence, the fifth record to bear his own name, is something of a departure for Metcalfe, framing bold images and themes with some of the most conventional song structures he's ever employed. But it's also his most affecting, deconstructing a subject he's been interested in since his childhood in New Zealand: Dealing with loss.

In Södling Sessions, three of Sweden's most well-known folk musicians meet: Ulrika Gunnarsson, Mia Marin and Tina Quartey. With an unusual instrument combination - voice, violin, and percussion - the trio approaches the peculiar Småland folk music composer Carl-Erik Södling's collection: beautiful songs, swinging songs, exciting ballads and witty folk tunes in a new musical arrangement. Carl-Erik Södling (1819 -1884) is a fascinating original in Swedish folk music history. He was a skilled collector of songs with an eye for the small details in the music. Södling was active as music and gymnastics director in Västervik and for a period was an organist in Buenos Aires. Södling had grandiose ideas about the cultural-historical significance of Swedish folk music in Europe and South America. He was affiliated with the Royal Academy of Music, but his ideas were too wild to be published. His surviving manuscripts contain hundreds of songs and songs of great interest and value.

With "Lass irre Hunde heulen", German singer/songwriter Gisbert zu Knyphausen and pianist Kai Schumacher have dedicated an entire album to one of the greatest composers of the 19th century, Franz Schubert. With a catalogue of over 600 works, Schubert is considered the master of the romantic art song; 10 selected tracks form the well-chosen cross-section through all his creative phases, arranged in a modern way and interpreted in an extraordinary style. A band line-up of drums, bass and guitars forms the sonic foundation, which is enriched by strings and winds and rounded off by Gisbert's smooth vocals. The two musical and biographical universes of the two "songwriters" merge without any residue, while at the same time Gisbert zu Knyphausen gives Schubert's well-known songs his very unique touch.

With "Lass irre Hunde heulen", German singer/songwriter Gisbert zu Knyphausen and pianist Kai Schumacher have dedicated an entire album to one of the greatest composers of the 19th century, Franz Schubert. With a catalogue of over 600 works, Schubert is considered the master of the romantic art song; 10 selected tracks form the well-chosen cross-section through all his creative phases, arranged in a modern way and interpreted in an extraordinary style. A band line-up of drums, bass and guitars forms the sonic foundation, which is enriched by strings and winds and rounded off by Gisbert's smooth vocals. The two musical and biographical universes of the two "songwriters" merge without any residue, while at the same time Gisbert zu Knyphausen gives Schubert's well-known songs his very unique touch.

A collection of Byzantine ecclesiastic hymns in Greek by Nektaria Karantzi, a distinguished female chanter, whose works are widely recognized in the sacred art of Byzantine music. The album includes ancient hymns, from the early Christian period, such as “Gladsome Light” and “Christ is Risen”, hymns dedicated to the Theotokos -a repertoire to which Karantzi has centered her research in recent years- hymns of Great Lent and Holy Week such as the well-known “They stripped me of my garments” and “Today, He hangs on the Cross”, as well as apolytikia for two significant recent Saints of the Orthodox Christian world, Saint Nektarios, Bishop of Pentapolis, and Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, of whom Nektaria was a spiritual child. The hymns are a cappella and without the accompaniment of a Byzantine Isokratima (Ison), conveyed in their simplest form, revealing the overwhelming power of the solitary voice of prayer. The album presents ancient hymns and poems of Saint Hymnographers of the 2nd to 7th centuries in musical compositions of the great teachers of psaltic art of the 18th and 19th centuries (Petros Peloponnesios, Georgios Redestinos), as well as musical arrangements and explanations of more recent great teachers of the 20th and 21st centuries (Athanassios Karamanis, Charilaos Taliadoros, etc.), based on the classic works of Byzantine ecclesiastical music.