Bambaraoui performs both entirely traditional songs from the Gnawa and hunter music repertoires, most lying at the intersection of the two, but with new arrangements. The music also ventures into blues, funk, and modern dance music styles that, in one way or another, have their origins in West Africa. Bambaraoui is a journey into the past, the present, and into the future.

Marisa Anderson’s music transcends borders.The topography of her work interrogates the intersections of artistry and expression with form and tradition. A singular guitarist and voracious musical collaborator, Anderson crafts pieces bursting with equal parts reverence and curiosity, contouring familiar shapes into work that is wholly her own. Anderson has spent decades mining the veins of the complicated, interconnected American folk traditions she was steeped in from a young age, stretching beyond those traditions and incorporating the vocabulary and techniques of vernacular and folk musics from across time and beyond boundary into her work. Eschewing replication or revival, Anderson’s music lives in conversation with tradition. “My approach to tradition is with the hands that I have and the history that I have,” notes Anderson. “In that way it’s a collaboration–you don’t go into collaboration trying to play like the other person, you go in trying to find out how to play together.”

Trezz Palombas brings a compilation of several versions of the same ballad found all over Europe and beyond combining versions of the “Cancionero del Franco Rico” or “Romance de Isabel” (Spain, Portugal) with “El Maurico Franco – Tres palombas van volando” (Sephardic) and finally the “Ballade van Serolewijn” or “Heer Halewijn” (Flanders and The Netherlands)

Drummer and composer Kulusé Souriant presents his debut album, Douvan — a work of contrasts, deeply lyrical and unmistakably personal. “I started thinking about my identity as human being and as artist, about my role in this society” says Kulusé, “and I tried to write a music that sounded like me. But I also gave my musicians the freedom to evolve my initial ideas to build a collective vision.” Written after a journey back to his native island of Guadeloupe, Douvan (which means “forward” in Creole) is a call to reconnect with what truly matters: with oneself, with nature, and with others, in order to move ahead with greater harmony and purpose.

Alternesia Revisited is a re-imagining of Jon Iverson's ground-breaking world-gamelan-fusion album Alternesia first issued in 1998.

Crossroads is a new project born from the collaboration between the Belgian quartet Motyk and the Georgian women’s choir Sathanao. The program weaves the mystical polyphony of Georgian singing with Motyk’s dynamic and adventurous compositions, creating a compelling dialogue between past and present, tradition and innovation, in which both ensembles challenge and enrich one another.

In 2005, Frédéric Galliano, founder of the Frikyiwa label, decided to put it on hold for a few years.In his archives, many albums recorded during his years of travels in Africa remain unreleased.In the context of the reactivation of the Frikyiwa label, the album Lionel and Stéphane Belmondo feat. Kéba Kébé Diolas Orchestra: "Calypso Diola" is therefore being released today.It was in the heart of Casamance, in the village of Bignona, that this album was recorded, in a house typical of the region, built of earth, with thick walls producing a warm acoustic open to the outside world.Frédéric Galliano's idea was to bring together the Belmondo brothers with Diola culture, renowned for it's distinctive percussion combining wood and struck metal, as well as singular instruments such as the ekontine (a four-string guitar) or Diola flutes.

Massa Dembele is a songwriter, griot, percussionist and master of the camel N'Goni, a West African harp.

“We Were Made For These Times” is a 40th-anniversary statement from The Klezmatics, the only Grammy-winning klezmer band, answering a fractured world with music of protest, faith, joy, and radical solidarity. Rooted in immigrant experience and shared memory, the album speaks outward across cultures and generations, insisting on dignity, connection, and collective resilience. In a moment when questions of immigration, labor, and belonging once again dominate public life, klezmer’s historic role as music of the marginalized feels not archival, but urgent. “We Were Made For These Times” treats tradition not as preservation, but as action: music that remembers where it comes from while speaking directly to the present.

Passion Congo is the latest project and album by the legendary Congolese musician Ray Lema, released in April 2026. The album launch coincided with celebrations for Lema's 80th birthday on April 3, 2026, which featured a special performance at the Studio de l'Ermitage in Paris. This work is a collaboration with the Ensemble Partage, blending Ray Lema's deep roots in Congolese Rumba with jazz and chamber music elements, including a string quartet. The project is described as a tribute to the "golden age" of Congolese music, revisiting classics from legendary figures like Franco Luambo and Tabu Ley while continuing Lema's lifelong mission of bridging Western and African musical traditions.

Purple Spirits is a collection of tributes to artists Ancient Future has historical connections with. "Punjabi Jhinzaki" is a tribute to tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, who was very instrumental in the development of Ancient Future and appears on Ancient Future's World Without Walls release. "Spirit of Nirvana" acknowledges the surprising history between Ancient Future and the band Nirvana. "East of the Sun (Studio Version)" features wind virtuoso Paul McCandless of Oregon. Sadly, this is the last oboe recording featuring him to be released, as in 2017 he was diagnosed with a health condition that led him to retire from playing oboe, although he kept a busy performance schedule on his other wind instruments until 2025. "Tres Tarantas Tres" is a tribute to David Easley, Matthew Montfort's high school guitar student who became a master flamenco player. "Purple Nam and Purple Haze (Vietnamese Đàn Bầu Style)" is a tribute to Jimi Hendrix that incorporates Indian raga and Vietnamese music.

Nearly ninety years after its opening in Paris at Opera Garnier, Transylvanian expat pianist Lucian Ban and American violist Mat Maneri present a radical re-imagination of George Enescu’s famous Oedipe opera. For decades, the opera was seen as too difficult to perform, the score and four long acts demanded much from the musicians, but Enescu’s Oedipe has finally begun to receive the attention that it rightly deserves and to be recognized as one of the greatest works in the operatic repertoire.

New album by SABA ALIZADEH, a groundbreaking voice in contemporary Iranian music who blends classical Persian traditions with avantgarde experimentation.

On New Year’s Day 1968 I heard Swamy Haridhos for the first time in Bombay and was struck by his charismatic personality and great singing. I was brought to hear and meet him by the family of K. Sridhar and K. Shivakumar with whom I was staying studying tabla and Hindustani music.

Mosaïc is an ensemble made up of six musicians from Bulgaria, France, Portugal and Tunisia. Their compositions are above all else a space for musical encounters at the crossroads of jazz and Mediterranean music. Their musical language is varied, combining Balkan ornamentation with the colours of Western European chamber music and the rhythmic essence of North African music. The ensemble explores imaginative worlds and interweaves traditions like a mosaic, passing from energetic grooves to the breath of the Bulgarian kaval and the woody sonority of stringed instruments. Now that its creations have been welcomed throughout the Mediterranean, Mosaïc presents a debut album inspired by the different places it has visited and the people it has met.