Behind this gorgeous collection of folk tunes from Southeast Asia, Soviet Russia and the Islamic and Arabic worlds lies the legacy of two Americans: the peyote-dropping 78rpm collector Harry Smith (whose 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music presented folk, blues and country recordings from the 1920s and 1930s) and the exploratory guitarist Marisa Anderson, whose back catalogue is steeped in tradition and improvisation. In 2023, she begged for time in Smith’s shuttered archives, discovering hours of non-American music, before learning to perform and share it.
Here, Anderson interprets nine of these tunes, pointedly taken from regions shaped by major US conflicts since her birth in 1970. While her fascinating liner notes track what is lost and found when trying to translate these compositions, their universal musicality still cuts through. Opener Quodlibet is beautiful: an intricate, minor-key medley of Uzbek tunes originally performed on the dambura (a fretless lute), on which Anderson adds bluegrass techniques to counter her inability to play quarter-tones on her guitar. Her take on a qawwali vocal tune, Hamd, is also a highlight, her stacked guitar layers ringing with warmth and emotion.
Gisela Rodríguez Fernández adds violin to Sarvi Simin, a shimmering tune from Soviet-era Afghanistan, while a Yemeni tune, Zar, intended to exorcise evil spirits from the sick, sees Anderson and Fernández constantly rearranging five notes without repetition. Dark ambient moods are also conjured in Pair of Duduk, on which Anderson shifts the drones of Armenian woodwinds on to reverb-heavy guitar and bassy synths, while in Vietnamese tune Whistle Song, transferred from bamboo flutes to electric piano, the composition’s closeness to minimalism sings out. In her notes, Anderson wonders quite rightly whether contemporary classical composers were influenced by this particular record: her whole album constantly and magically questions how porous far-flung musical cultures really are.
Also out this month
Occitan French female duo Cocanha’s third album, Flame Folclòre (Bongo Joe) is a brilliant, restless listen, right from its punky opener Remenanuèch, about women taming a drac (dragon) known for its shifting forms and trickster energy. Imagine an early-80s no-wave female duo leaping into polyphonic harmonies, spoken-word rhythms and tales of resistance and rebellion on the tamborin à cordes (stringed drums). It’s that delicious. Similarly strong is Eòlas-Charm (Chamber Music Scotland), the debut album by Sgo, AKA sisters Steaph and Ciorstaidh Chaimbeul, who perform 10 tracks on harp, accordion and vocals, representing native trees from Gaelic oral histories. The storytelling in sound and the musicianship throughout is both mesmerising and monumental. Also wondrous is Lady Maisery and Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith’s Wakefire: A Summer Album (LM Records), a 27-track-strong achievement full of ballads, radio samples and field recordings tracing the passage from April to September. Highlights include the political, banjo-driven May Day, and Latvian summer solstice song, Ligō.