Ethnic music

[ParadEyes]

Music is a universal languageIn this thread I thought we can share beautiful songs from different parts of the world..songs from your country, your culture, or in your language. What do you guys think?

 

[ellastica]

this reminds me of a short but interesting interaction i had about a week ago with a studly irish-looking man who to my ear untrained seemed to be speaking german; turned out the fair, freckle-faced, red-headed man in question was not Irish but rather a visitor to the Seattle-area from his native Turkey but was speaking Greek(waaaaay off ) to his cohorts. He spoke English fluently and his accent very subtle and hard to pin down.

The man later shared that he made a living as a freelance translator hence his fluent English. The topic of music came up and i asked what music is popular in Turkey; to my dismay and disappointment( but not shock) he replied that basically all of the same ol' crappy western pop stars that rule the American music charts rule the music charts in Turkey. He did not divulge any 'insider' info on Turkish Pop stars us American's may be deprived of. (his friend did comment that there was a store located in Istanbul ) The red-haired man lamented how corporatized the world had become and how as a free-lance translator he would never work for someone else. Well more power to ya for being your own boss but i pointed out that the store he was shopping at was/is a multi-national, mega retail corporation (housed and thriving inside a MALL the epitome of American consumerism no less) . so much for 'sticking to the man'

This sounds promising altho i am a bit unclear on what falls under "ethnic"? Does Sepultura count I get the impression this thread was created in the spirit of wanting to be 'inclusive' rather than 'exclusive' but does this exclude American music or songs written in English? is 'ethnic' being used very loosely (as in fashion) for traditional/folk music of a given cutlure? i.e. non-western "world" music?

 

[ParadEyes]

I was initially interested in sharing/learning/discovering popular classics or folklore music from different parts of the world (including western ), ..but I guess it wasn't a very successful idea since not many people here share this interest.
I kind of agree with the Turkish man you talked about.
Coming from an Arab country myself, I see the vast influence of American pop culture here. I feel like music nowadays just doesn't feel distinctive and personal anymore..but this might be a good thing for some people.

*Sepultura counts..if you wanted it to

 

[purplethistle]

I took this thread to mean traditional/folk music. I don't really listen to this but I do more often than not like some of the Japanese and Chinese traditional music where they pluck, strum or bow various instruments.

 

[ellastica]

A relatively obscure/cult Christian folk-rock/ alt-country band hailing from Denver, Colorado: 16 Horsepower (1992-2005 This is off their self-titled 1995 EP. The lead singer David Eugene Edwards for those unfamiliar has a similar singing style to that of Mike Scott lead singer of the Irish/Scottish folk-rock band the Waterboys ( 1983-1996, 2000-present). Altho the latter attained much wider commercial success I do prefer 16hp by far
VolumMusicBlog


graybeard1952

 

[ellastica]

Here's a very well done, enlightening and heartfelt 5 part documentary about David Eugene Edwards of 16hp:







all oliv6733

 

[ellastica]

all oliv6733

 

[GloMichelle]

I think this is a beautiful idea for a thread!
Although I'm Spanish, I have always had a soft spot for ethinic music especially from middle east.
This is one of my favorites by Omar Faruk, called "Immortal Egypt"
check it out B) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BxEVaXlm6o

 

[ellastica]

^thanks for the rec. always on the lookout for new music. have you heard of Mulatu Astatke? He's known as "the father of Ethio jazz."


This album was my introduction to Mulatu:

amazon


Yegelle Tezeta (1974)

rovingeye2


and David Eugene again (w/ current band Woven Hand) playing some hardcore accordian

MarioCzernayRevival

 

[auxt]

Mulatu is amazing, I'm glad he's seeing a resurgence in popularity


Here are two of my favorite Egyptian east/west tracks

 

[auxt]

groove from Ghana (again with a western influence)

 

[auxt]

Hungarian guitarist



again a crossover sound, so I'm not being a purist


the REAL stuff is on Folkways -- http://www.folkways.si.edu/
almost every culture is represented with one recording or another

 

[ellastica]

so cool.thanks for the link!

http://kexp.org/programming/programming.asp

back in high school the above Seattle station KEXP expanded their air waves down south to Tacoma and i was obsessed with them, but sadly it was short-lived and they pulled the plug on the nether regions due to insufficient public funding. I was so so sad and that was after i donated $100 from my measly high school job paycheck. obviously that wasn't enough and more people needed to be on the same funding wavelength. anyways now they stream online and have a ton of different specialty programs with equally eclectic hosts. Riz on Expansions is my favorite host to simply listen to talk. I've seen this guy at music festivals and you know the old 60s dj phrase "turn on tune in drop out"? this appears to be his off-air mantra as well but yeah tons of good stuff to be heard there.

 

[ellastica]

One of my favorite songs of all time by indie-folk guitarist M Ward:
the build up to 1:44 kills me. immensely moving.


colin06


Matt put this John Fahey tribute album together and i love him for it:

amazon


A favorite Fahey song off of his Old Fashioned Love album. A (cover) song altho it's played pretty true to the original.

bpvdd

 

[YoninahAliza]

I love the idea behind this thread! For me I think music is pretty universal and I tend to listen to music from all around the world. I have a soft spot for Israeli, French, Spanish, and Bollywood music though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG7fBifcRLk&feature=fvst
www.youtube.com
I'm a huge fan of Israeli singer Harel Skaat. Some Europeans might recognize him from competing in last years Eurovision contest. This is a link to a video of him performing his song Milim (which means word in English) in Hebrew. It's one of my favorite songs!

 

[ParadEyes]

Wow great contributions here! Thanks guys


I'd like to add some of my favourites. (Almost all my favourite songs belong to the refined Andalusian period. Highly spiritual music with different religious influences. Thank God it's still perserved in Morrocco.)

Lama Bada

Here sang by a greek artist


Sang by another artist..I love her voice

 

[lonn3k3]

here are some traditional Romanian songs; unfortunately i'm not very familiar to this kind of music, there are some much more beautiful songs; for now this is my humble contribution






i'm sure some of you know the last one from Kill Bill ^