After a best mate of mine introduced me to Fela Kuti’s works I’ve been real interested in hearing music from other cultures you don’t hear much stuff from. Doesn’t have to be traditional music styles (love it when genres and cultures fuse together, like Masayoshi Takanaka taking influence from Brazilian music), but I’d love to hear that as well!
There is a kora player from Mali called Ballaké Sissoko who makes really cool and chill music. I only heard about him because of a news article about the TSA destroying his instrument. I googled him after I had read his article and really liked his music, even though I didn’t even know what a kora was before.
How could I forget Cesaria Evora?!
The Mongolian metal band The Hu fuse tradition instruments with metal styling and a badass attitude that Genghis would approve of
Also their name is great.
The Hu at this point might be more famous than the country they’re from (which to be fair, isn’t THAT obscure, but how often DO you think of Mongolia?)
If you like The Hu check out Uuhai and Batzorig Vaanchig.
Ah yes the bad that gave me tinnitus. Wonderful to see live just make sure you have earplugs and stuck by the crowd next to the speakers with two beers and a deaf sound engineer.
Loop Experience ones are good. Otherwise, tissue.
And they will finally play their homeland for the first time since making it!
Thinking of Asian metal related music reminded me of Senyawa who are from Indonesia
Great band, on the more experimental side of things
Altyn Tuu. Technically they’re located in Russia, but belong to the Altai ethnic group, so I’m counting them.
Al-Namrood (Metal, Saudi-Arabia)
Mdou Mactar (Desert Blues)
Leliță Săftiță (Aromanian folk song)
Hrdza (Folk Rock, Slovakia)
Kamo Mphela (Amapiano, South Africa)
May I have the honor of introducing you to African Rhumba: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O3BexfHBTIg
That is a favorite one. The album is by two of the greatest in African music: Franco Luambo (of TPOK Jazz) and Tabu Ley (of Afrisa International). They did this album to cool down rumours that they were fighting and don’t see eye to eye. They called it Lisanga ya Banganga (Congress of the Wizards).
This specific song I share is solemn, as they are mourning the death of their mentor, Kabaselle.
Check their respective Wikipedia entries. It is a whole new world you are peeking into.
Very, very nice. Thanks.
Alien Weaponry, New Zealand metal band comes first to mind. Lots of Maori influence, all three members have Maori ancestry.
Alan Stivell does some incredible fusion of rock and Celtic folk. i usually avoid the term “Celtic” for music because some people find it dismissive to lump multiple musical traditions together like that, but he very deliberately draws from most (all?) of the musical traditions that would fall under that umbrella. i highly recommend the E Dulenn and Á L’Olympia live albums
There’s an awesome Afrobeat collection called Nigeria: The Definitive Story of 1970’s Funky Lagos. I don’t know if it’s streaming but it’s a good next step.
This is a way more chill recommendation but I love Mayra Andrade from Cape Verde for music to relax to.
I’ll need to check that out, sounds good. In return, I’ll recommend the Beginner’s Guide to African Funk, a 3 CD set full of absolute gems.
I’m a fan of Bomba Estereo, from Colombia. They are sort of in the Electro Cumbia genre. Systema Solar is another of that type. I like their more up-tempo songs, they do have slower, pop-ballad type songs too.
They’re really fun, I heard a mix of Fuego in a club in Bogota when I moved there and loved them from thereon.
There’s this british band, that dabble in many different styles. Not many people heard of them. Probably because they haven’t released any new music in a while, and it feels like they haven’t toured in FOREVER!!!
But it’s this little niche band, called The Beatles.
Do you think they have a chance of break through?
If you’re into metal, here are a few bands renowned for mixing cultural music with heavy metal off the top of my head:
Norway - Ulver (They have possibly the most varied discography in all of music, but their first album is a mix of black metal and Norwegian folk music, and their second is entirely Norwegian folk music)
Brazil - Sepultura (From Arise to Roots they started incorporating a lot of Brazilian musical ideas)
Romania - Negura Bunget (They’re the only reason I know what a nai is)
Brazil isn’t an obscure country, but there’s an indigenous band called Uakti that builds their own instruments. It’s some of the most unusual music I’ve heard. They also have some classical albums, and one by Phillip Glass that I like to listen to when I’m coming down from a trip.
Thy Catafalque from Hungary
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadril
Belgian folk groupSpecifically: https://www.discogs.com/release/6421340-Kadril-La-Paloma-Negra
made with the band Alumea.Review: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/kadril-alumea.shtml
This two-disc set is a studio version of a concert program produced jointly by Galician family combo Alumea and Flemish folk-rock band Kadril, inspired by Flemish pilgrims in Galicia. The results are peculiar but satisfying.
I wish I could find the KCRW episode about this album. That’s (I think) how I heard about it.
