Innovative guitar duo Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero began working together in Mexico City in the 1990s, first in the heavy metal band Tierra Ácida, then as a beach bar-playing duo in Ixtapa, then as a busking duo in Dublin, Ireland, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan. They are citizens of the world. OurHome was recorded and produced by the duo in Japan at Tokyo’s NK Studio with mixing assistance from Dave Sardy. The country, its culture, and its people are beloved by the duo. The album marks RyG’s return to a primarily acoustic sound, though electric guitars appear. The 11-track set also includes their first-ever vocal song and guest instrumentalists including jazz pianist Hiromi, guitarists Yukihiro Atsumi and Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth), and cellist Hiyori Okuda.
Category: world
Within Haruomi Hosono’s decades-spanning career, 2006’s “Walking Vibration” isn’t particularly notable. The celebrated Japanese musician made this flute-accented instrumental for a TV show aired that same year about people seeking clarity in life via a famous pilgrimage around the country’s Shikoku region. It’s a minor entry in a sprawling songbook that changed the course of his home country’s music scene and influenced creators around the world, preserved only on a 2008 “archive” collection.
Yet on his treasure box of an album Yours Sincerely, the 79-year-old Hosono revisits what was once just background music for a four-episode drama. He keeps the traditional percussive touches of the original intact but adds…
Strut presents Nigeria 80, the next essential chapter in the legendary Nigeria 70 series, diving deep into the explosive sound world of 1980s Nigeria. Following the global impact of 2001’s Nigeria 70, which helped introduce rare Nigerian recordings to international audiences, Nigeria 80 continues the journey, unearthing a rich, restless, and wildly creative decade of music from Lagos to Enugu. Despite economic instability and restrictive political conditions in the ’80s, Nigeria’s music industry flourished, driven by a growing network of independent labels such as Tabansi and Phonodisk, which championed local artists and expanded creative freedom. The ’80s also marked a significant rise in visibility for female artists, with trailblazers like Onyeka Onwenu…
Adrian Younge always has several projects on deck. In 2026 alone he produced and played on three releases from his and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Jazz Is Dead label, with one more coming. Further, his Linear Labs studio and label have issued three 2026 outings: the completely solo outing Younge, the EP Afro-Disco Makossa, and the forthcoming Proud of Me in collaboration with British singer/songwriter ALA.NI.
That’s a lot of work for one man, but Younge’s organic process makes it all possible. What’s more, he makes it look easy.
Afro-Disco Makossa was born from a single question: “What would a Ghanaian producer in ’76 have made if he set out to create an American disco record for his hometown?”…
Chopping Mountain is the sixth long player from Ibibio Sound Machine. It was recorded in South London at their Vanguard studio and produced by synthesist/saxophonist Max Grunhard. It’s the first time ISM has eschewed an outside producer since 2019’s Doko Mien. Their subjects across these ten tracks are love, social and political resistance, unity, and healing, both societal and individual. While these aren’t unfamiliar topics, they are presented with a seamless maturity and an unwillingness to compromise. The songs were rehearsed, performed, and recorded collectively; they’re chock-full of classic West African highlife, mutant post-punk, Afrobeat, electronic sounds, and breathtaking 21st century soul.
Opener “Burning in Lagos” is introduced by…
Ezra Collective have a talent that’s rarely found in jazz music, the ability to sound and feel like far more than session musicians put in a room to play music. The London born quintet have had this cohesive, tight-knit energy since their debut EP Chapter 7 in 2016, and it’s easy to hear that their connection has a history that reaches long before that. The words accessible and jazz don’t really go together, but as a young, relatable, current troupe of musicians, Ezra Collective have taken Afro-jazz to the mainstream, and with Here Because of Hope, they’re finally telling it’s story.
Here Because of Hope is split into three sections, marked by poems read by Letitia Wright, taking us not only on a journey through genres, but a literal, geographical journey of jazz.
Mekong Shellac is an extremely rare collection of classical and popular styles of Khmer music from the 1930s to the 1950s. Restored from the few original remaining copies, this compilation reveals a remarkable world of early 20th-century Cambodian folk music previously lost in time through war, cultural shifts, and modernization. These recordings were selected for their distinctive musical qualities, the physical condition of the 78 rpm records from which they were sourced, and the circumstances of their survival.
The selections span a range of Khmer musical forms, including Chapey, Romvong, Lakon Basak, Pleng Khmer, Ayai, and Ayai Reung, as well as classical and court-derived traditions such as Pinpeat and Mahori, alongside popular…
This is raw, unfiltered ceremonial gong ensemble music recorded on location by Laurent Jeanneau in Ratanakiri, Cambodia’s northeastern province, bordering Laos and Vietnam. Along with Mondolkiri to the south, it was once home to many of the country’s ethnic minority communities. During the colonial period, the French failed to establish full control over the region. After independence, the Khmer state also struggled to govern it, while Khmer Rouge rebels hid in its forests in the 1960s amid the wider conflict between communist Vietnam and the United States. The Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 and the subsequent Vietnamese occupation, which lasted until 1991, could have devastated the traditions of northeastern Cambodia’s ethnic minorities.
Filmmaker, author, musician and Indian classical music industry academic Robert Millis presents a sequel to his 2018 book/2CD compilation Indian Talking Machine with this incredible double LP haul of instrumental Hindustani, Carnatic and folk 78rpm records from the subcontinent featuring over 25 artists recorded between 1904 and 1959 playing a panoply of instruments: jalatarang, dilruba, sarod, clarionet, pakhawaj, violin, been, kazoo, shehnai, tabla, sarangi, vina and more. Indian Talking Machine Part Two features Imdad Khan (the first sitarist ever recorded), Ahmedjan Thirkhawa, Bundu Khan, Amir Hussain, Allauddin Khan (who taught Ravi Shankar), and others both forgotten and revered.
The Indian classical instrumental tradition is…
…Across western Algeria, the gasba, a reed flute central to Bedouin folk traditions and ceremonial music, continues to appear in new forms. Once associated primarily with saint festivals and trance rituals, its distinctive hypnotic sound now sits alongside the drum machines, synths and electronic textures of contemporary raï.
The recordings collected here come from Oran, the port city of Western Algeria widely regarded as the birthplace of raï. Before raï became an international pop phenomenon, its foundations were rooted in older Bedouin musical traditions from the surrounding countryside: gasba flute melodies, guellal drum rhythms, improvised folk poetry and songs performed at weddings, zerdas and informal gatherings. Many of the musical…
Talent alone is not enough to get ahead in the music business. You need some breaks too.
That’s the story of Austin Texas’ The Animeros (the word refers to older men who pray for souls in purgatory) path to this, their debut album. Not long after the mostly instrumental Latino trio formed in 2024, was nominated as Best New Act and Best Latin Act in a poll by The Austin Chronicle, in addition to nabbing a slot on the prestigious Austin City Limits Festival, Black Keys frontman/producer/studio and label owner Dan Auerbach got involved. He happened to hear them when their cumbia music wafted down from a rooftop as he passed below during the SXSW festival. It was their second live performance.
After signing them to his Easy Eye imprint,…
Need an escape from the gloom and doom of global politics? How about a hit of Brazilian world-jazz of the “sal, sol, sul” variety? Ella & The Bossa Beat‘s Amare might be the ticket. For an idea of the ethos, consider a few of the titles: “Mais que um Verão” (More than a Summer), “Areia” (Sand), “Amanhecer” (Dawning), “Summer Rain,” “Amare.” Salt, sun, south, and of course, love…
On their fourth project together, the father-daughter songwriting team of Orlando-based Brazilian singer-pianist Ella Blu and drummer-percussionist Magrus Borges offers a dreamy album of original music recorded in Italy in collaboration with São Paulo-born Milan-based songwriter and singer-guitarist Toco (Tomaz Di Cunto). Blu, who counts Orlando’s…
PRAED is an amalgamation of Raed Yassin (electronics, vocals) and Paed Conca (clarinets, bass, samples), from Lebanon and Switzerland respectively, who have worked together as a duo since 2006. Recorded between Beirut and Berlin, they’ve invited a large group of string and percussion players, well suited to the pair’s devotion to incremental layering and massive pulse-states.
The tracks range from 19 minutes down to four – ample time for expansion! Conca stacks up his clarinet parts to make a veritable horn section, while the hard-attack frame and goblet drums attain an abandoned ecstasy. The strings are strong, but sit just below the synths on the equality meter, with underlaid drones…
In 1982, British composer and tabla player Kuljit Bhamra debuted with the album Punjabi Disco, featuring his mother Mohinder Kaur Bhamra as the singer. The album was initially a commercial failure, but later developed a cult following after its rediscovery in the early 21st century, leading to a re-release in 2025.
…On DESI: The Soul of Punjab Bhamra serves as the primary mastermind and producer, uniting iconic voices and renowned lyricists across the British-Punjabi and global diaspora.
This album is a testament to, celebration of and showcase for the current talent of the Punjabi music scene in the UK. As such, it not only reminds us of the huge impact bhangra had when it arrived in Britain during the 1980s but also…
Pioneering Arabic/Western fusion singer Natacha Atlas returns alongside creative and life partner Samy Bishai – a violinist and composer who has served as Atlas’ musical director since 2010 – with an album dedicated to the people of Palestine.
The lead single, ‘Unchanging Game’, sets a suitably sombre tone. Processed beats and hand percussion mix with subtle electronics and keyboards. Atlas’ voice remains as smooth and compelling as ever. ‘Zar’’s experimental edge trickles and bubbles with cut-and-splice vocals.
‘Wana Leih’ displays an ultra-modern R&B gleam yet sacrifices little to commercialism. ‘Dawsha’ ticks, clicks and sways across an ambient, trip-hop landscape. ‘Bahlam Biyoum’ rains stirring melodies over a romantic, digital…
Lebanese vocalist Sandy Chamoun‘s second solo album is inspired by Sardinian polyphonic folk music the Arab ecstatic forms, modernized by synths from her SANAM and Ghadr collaborator Anthony Sayhoun and percussion from Ali Hout.
If you caught either of those heavy SANAM albums – but especially 2023’s Aykathani Malakon – then you’ll already be familiar with Chamoun’s voice, that carries the Beirut-baed band’s hallucinogenic blend of folk, free jazz and acid rock. On her own, however, Chamoun gives her voice even more room to breathe, following loose historical threads to re-interpret concepts that surge through her music. The album’s title means “the sound of tears” and it directly addresses the war and genocide in the Levant; Chamoun looks to tarab,…