This new release contains well-known and much loved steeldrum hits, such as Jamaica Farewell, Guantanamera, Yellow Bird, El Cumbanchero, Island in the Sun and many others, presented by two of London’s champion steel bands, the Southside Harmonics Steel Orchestra and the London All Stars Steel Orchestra, both multiple winners of many steel band competitions. The Southside Harmonics Steel Orchestra (formerly the ‘Lambeth Community Youth Steel Orchestra,’ re-named in 1998) was formed in the summer of 1979. Since then the band has gone on to become one of London’s finest steel orchestras. They have participated in the National Panorama Steel Band competition every year. In 1998 they were placed second, which proves the capabilities of the group. Since 1987 the band has also taken part in Europe’s largest street festival, the Notting Hill Carnival in London. They made first place four times in the “Best Steel Band on the Road” competition, entertaining carnival audiences with performances to remember. The London All Stars were the initial winners of the Lambert Steelband Festival Championship and the Jamorama Competition. Between 1980 and 1989 they won the Mangrove Trophy twice, the Panorama Championships three times and the first and second British National Steelband Festival Championship. They made history by being the first steelband to be invited to play at the 1990 BBC Proms and to represent Britain at the 1990 World Steelband Music Festival in Trinidad and Tobago.

Folk songs are the songs of the people. From ancient times to the present, regardless of location, each era will inevitably produce a unique historical story, due to differences in culture, language, and religion. Most Chinese love songs are about human emotions and reflect the culture and tradition. In a conservative culture with generational differences, true love was not always easy nor always had a happy ending. Sometimes young lovers needed to fight their way through. This release is a stunning collection of Chinese love songs, including well-known traditional folk tunes and new compositions based on famous poems from dynasty poets. The works are performed by the renowned Heart of the Dragon Ensemble and played on traditional instruments with both male and female voices.

October swiftly approaches, and what Oktoberfest celebration is complete without celebratory, often raucous, music? for the perfect complement to your stein of Spaten, horn of Hefeweizen, or glass of Gerst, turn to this fabulous release by first rate 15-piece brass ensemble D'Wyn Mugge.

Traditional Mexican music is explored on this new release from ARC Music. Featuring folk songs, a capella multi-part singing, and Mariachi music, the works on this album are lively and festive. Booklet notes on each of the songs are included.

Mali's Les Escrocs are pioneers in the fast-growing world of African Rap and Hip-Hop. Since the early 1990s, the group has helped define the cutting edge of new music in West Africa, mixing traditional instruments with contemporary international beats, and boldly addressing sensitive issues of social and national politics: polygamy, AIDS, corruption, and the changing role of women in society. Les Escrocs made their first recording with help from another Griot, the master of the 21-string kora, Toumani Diabate. Toumani and other older musicians encouraged the group to stick with it's engaged, roots approach, and before long, Les Escrocs found themselves on national television, giving all of Mali a powerful rebuttal to the common idea that rappers were all dropouts and delinquents. From there on, the group's popularity has climbed steadily. Les Escrocs started out as a trio of rappers, but after Mamadou's two cohorts left to study abroad, he was joined in 1999 by Salim Diallo. The two went on to make four albums, Kokadje (Transparency), Kalan (Study), Can 2002, and a new work nearing completion as this CD goes to press. These fourteen tracks offer a retrospective of the first decade of Les Escrocs, one of the most innovative and talented groups to emerge from the awesome crucible of ancient and modern arts that is Mali.

Best of Tango Argentino

VERY BEST OF RUSSIA

Kal Band is an urban Romani band from the suburbs of Belgrade. Western reviewers call their style 'Rock n' Roma' which probably best reflects their music. From their beginnings in 2006 to the present, they've played over 400 concerts at some of the most important local, European and international festivals.

Tumbao (World Dance - Salsa)

Ancient Civilisations of Southern Africa 3: The Tswana Peopl

Classical Music

The music on this album is rooted in the music of Herat, Afghanistan, which both Veronica and John studied in the 1970s. Abdul grew up in Herat and has performed this music throughout his career, so he knows it intimately. The music captures an era of peace and normality, seen by many Afghans as a golden age before the recent turmoil, upheaval and war.

In the tradition of the West Africa griots and the ancient Greek epic poets / storytellers, calypso music has long provided a form of social commentary for the Trinidadian and Tobagonian peoples. • Originating from the kaiso music of Western Africa and evolving with various influences over time, calypso is to Trinidad and Tobago as reggae is to Jamaica and samba is to Brazil. • Despite tackling often-serious subject matter, a calypsonian conveys it all in a humorous – sometimes bawdy – but always inherently enjoyable manner. • This collection highlights a selection of classic and modern calypsos.

With this release, Ambronay Editions invites listeners to delve into the roots of tango. Bandon+-on virtuoso William Sabatier is joined by baritone Diego Flores and guitarist Ciro Perez for an intimate and poetic journey in the footsteps of the great Carlos Gardel. The arrangements heard here (written by Sabatier) set texts full of melancholy and passion and capture the spirit and emotion of the national music of Argentina perfectly.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The accordion is the ultimate global instrument. As a catalyst of popular music it spread around the world in the 19th century like wildfire. 26 rare 78rpm recordings from Africa, Latin America, the US, the Caribbean and Europe display the enormous variety of early accordion styles. You will glimpse a wild folk music that hardly exists today. The invention of the "accordion", as it was named in the patent granted to Viennese organ and piano builder Cyrill Demian in 1829 was a musical explosion, which triggered a chain reaction of global dimension. The accordion was louder than any string instrument, and it was portable. It also had fixed tuning. But it's biggest advantage was it's format as a one-man-band. Even when pressing the wrong notes within a melody it still sounded pleasant. Therefore the accordion was seen as a "miracle box" which immediately allowed everybody without any formal musical training to participate actively in music making. It may truly be claimed that the accordion gave birth to popular music.

'Qawwali', ecstatic Sufi song from Pakistan, is a tradition of music over eight hundred years old, deeply rooted in the Islamic Sufi tradition and first made widely accessible to a Western audience by artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Sabri Brothers. With the ensembles Bahauddin Qutbuddin Qawwal and Asif Ali Khan Manzoor Hussain Santoo Khan Qawwal, "Flight of the Soul" presents rarely heard traditional sounds of this mystic, rousing music. - This is the last recording with the meanwhile passed-away qawwali master, Qutbuddin!

Nyabole - Singing on the Way to the Dancing Ground "Look here, the customs of our fathers keep us warm." The men of the Hamar, a south Ethiopian people, still tell of the great deeds of their ancestors, from whom they have inherited their heroic will and strong personality. The music of the Hamar is varied: the word painting of the mouth bow, the sound of the flute, the interplay of voice and lyre stand alongside running songs, leaping dances, and war songs. The recordings were made between 1970 and 1976 by the field researcher and ethnologist Ivo Strecker and - after having been published on LP in 1977 - were awarded the annual German Record Critics' Award, in 1981. This edition not only presents a general introduction to the music of the Hamar, but it also provides us with the social, psychological and historical contexts of the music in the sense of an ethnography of communication and performance. Events that take place at the periphery of a musical performance may be important to help one understand it. This is why an edition of the present kind is only possible with the help of experiences such as those which Ivo Strecker was able to accumulate during his long periods of intensive field research as a participant and observer among the Hamar. This CD set includes a very extensive and richly illustrated booklet.

Classical Music

During his Berlin visit in 1998, the Siberian sound shaman Spiridon Shishigin made recordings for his first solo CD, "Soul of Yakutia". Khomus - instrument of seduction with spiritual and healing effects. The area around Lake Baikal is not only the home of the Turks, of the Mongolian and Tartar people, but also the original home of the mouth harp. From here the instrument has spread almost all over the world. The Sakha people say that the khomus (mouth harp) has been their means of expression, central to their existence, for at least three thousand years.

Coup Fatal (Fatal Blow) is an original encounter between Baroque and Congolese music. Organized around Fabrizio Cassol (musical director), Serge Kakudji (countertenor) and Rodriguez Vangama (conductor/guitarist), they have been elaborating for several years a ‘Baroque recital’ the likes of which have never been heard. Live, the show is staged and choreographed by Alain Platel, who leads the company of 13 musicians into a universe where songs, traditional African instruments and dances are one. In this new exploration of the repertoire, Baroque ‘hits’ unite with folk music.

Al Qantara

This unusual album shows the contemporary trombone in a rich variety of guises – dramatic, lyrical, flirtatious, solemn, capricious and many more – in four recent concertante pieces for trombone and symphonic wind band, demonstrating the striking versatility of the instrument. It’s an international undertaking, too: the soloist is English, the band and conductor American, and the composers American, Danish, Dutch and English, all four writing in a language that is direct and immediate. Brett Baker is viewed internationally as a leading brass performer and educator. One of the most often recorded brass soloists, he is passionate about encouraging composers to write pioneering new repertoire. Brett is Programme Leader for Musical Arts at the University of Salford. He continues to be an ambassador for Michael Rath Brass Instruments and is Principal Trombone of the Black Dyke Band. He is Festival Director of both the Singapore and Thailand Low Brass Festivals and is a Past President of the British Trombone Society.

En El Amor is a fascinating new project that brings together two well-known jazz musicians, Michel Godard (serpent) and Jarrod Cagwin (percussion) with the Bosnian singer Natasa Mirkovic, a truly versatile vocalist who became known internationally with her theme song for Angelina Jolie’s “In the land of blood and honey,” as well as for her recording of Schubert’s “Winterreise.” On this album, the singer performs songs from her childhood in Bosnia: Ancient Sephardic traditionals, that are still being sung by the people of the Balkan area today. She clearly draws inspiration from her ancestral roots, while at the same time the three musicians arrange these old songs in a new and experimental context, creating a magical soundscape that transcends time, culture and tradition. Recorded in the breathtaking acoustics of the former synagogue of St. Polten in Austria, this album becomes a total work of art fusing ancient and new, religious and secular, traditional and modern artistic expression.