2008 album from the Grammy Award-winning South African vocal group. Ilembe is a tribute to the South African cultural icon Shaka Zulu. In the late 1700s, Shaka Zulu united the Zulus with various neighboring tribes into a single powerful force that helped give birth to a proud nation. Today, Shaka Zulu is regarded as one of the greatest leaders in African history. His combination of warrior discipline, visionary leadership, innate creativity, and unshakable belief in a united nation continues to resonate to this day in South Africa. He is revered as the single figure who gave birth to the indomitable fighting spirit of the Zulus: the same spirit that enabled South Africans to persevere amid the European domination of their homeland for nearly two centuries of apartheid. Ilembe celebrates not only Shaka Zulu but the sense of perseverance, creativity and pride that he has inspired in generations of descendants.

"137 Avenue Kaniama" is the highly anticipated debut album from Baloji, a Congolese-born, Belgium-based poet, composer, lyricist, beat maker, scriptwriter, actor, video artist and stylist. His singular sound stands at the unlikely crossroads of traditional African music, hip-hop, French folk, soul, funk, jazz and electronic. Through this amalgamation of influence, he produces a musical hybrid that's intelligent, earnest and demanding of movement.

It all starts with the voice. At turns heavy and hulkingly powerful, yet agile and pointedly precise, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s vocal not only embodies the tradition of the Sufi qawwali but it is the emotive essence of singing itself.

From the first notes of symbiont, the radical new collaborative album and document of Black and Indigenous futurism from Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin, the listener is met with rising tidewaters, massive droughts, and the appearance of an iconoclastic uprising amidst the world’s indifference. Questions of future or present tense swirl around the music as the duo unspools the intertwined threads of racial and climate justice. Amid rumbling synthesizer drones, the thrum of banjo, and the thwack of drum machines, a whisper of truth can be heard: this crisis has been unfolding for centuries.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Cultural Revolution did everything in their power to destroy the influence of religion in the Russian Empire. Sacred music was publicly forgotten in the process. Although Schnittke, whose German-born father emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1926, was atheistically influenced by the state education system, he believed spiritually in “something greater”. In 1982, he was baptized a Catholic, and shortly before his death he was accepted into the Orthodox Church. The search for a religious identity can also be traced in his works. His Choir Concerto is the most representative work of the genre “sacred concerto”.

Hirundo Maris has constantly explored new musical worlds and forms of expression since it was founded in 2009 under the direction of Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen. They are now taking a completely different path with this new project for the label Fuga Libera, which is devoted to a great and wonderful song tradition, the nineteenth- and twentieth-century art song, featuring composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Fauré, Debussy, Mompou, Toldrà, García Lorca, de Falla and Grieg – all of whom were so significant for this chamber music genre.

Vesvese Records debut with Gaye Su Akyol’s long-awaited remix album, in collaboration with electronic music artists all around the world. The project will feature 18 tracks and will be released every three months as an EP.

Etran de L’Aïr the STARS OF THE AÏR, the longest running wedding band in AGADEZ, capital of Tuareg guitar, return with a new album of sun-schlazed desert sound! Their first album, No.1, brought their music to critics and fans. Their second album, Agadez, sent them into the international touring circuit. And now they're back with 100% SAHARA GUITAR, ready to take on the world, with those swinging melodies, like a sandstorm blowing in from across the sea.

Jabula (isiZulu: "rejoice") was a musical ensemble made of South African musicians "exiled" in England during the Apartheid Era. Under Apartheid, traditional African music was largely banned from radio and even private play, and groups who performed it were often forced into exile. The four members that became Jabula met in London where they were living after leaving South Africa. The group was formed in 1974. In addition to their own albums, the group also performed with Mike Oldfield for his albums Amarok, Incantations, and Ommadawn.

With a reputation for championing Denmark’s most special emerging creative voices to the world, April Records is home to many of the country’s finest contemporary musicians and composers. This Autumn the label proudly presents the contemplative debut release from ‘Blåly’, a brand new trio motivated by the transformative and healing powers of music.

Work on preparing this album began in 2019, when I first encountered Mykola Dyletsky’s music – we performed fragments of his Requiem Liturgy with Wrocław Baroque Ensemble in Kyiv. At that time, they made a great impression on me, which, along with my subsequent work as a conductor on this artist’s works and subsequent concerts, strengthened my feeling that I was dealing with a unique repertoire.

A delightful selection of choral works by the important Basque composer Pablo Sorozábal, for mixed choir, women’s choir and choir with piano. A magnificent example of the importance of the rich Basque culture.

With their unmistakable sound of Welsh language vocals shimmering alongside swamp guitar, harp, rhythm section and a subtle use of technology, 9Bach have been widely credited with giving a new voice to Welsh song. Their previous album, Tincian, (also featured on Society of Sound) was described by The Line of Best Fit as "ripped through with transcendence; a brooding melancholy as much as a gossamer dreaminess", and was voted Best Album at the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Awards by the public.

Compiled from ultra-rare dead stock pressed at a Soviet-era vinyl plant in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, this first-of-its-kind fully licensed album features a supreme selection of Uzbek disco, Tajik electronic folk, Uyghur guitar licks, Crimean Tatar jazz, Korean brass, and genre-defying styles from Soviet Central Asia.

Jabula (isiZulu: "rejoice") was a musical ensemble made of South African musicians "exiled" in England during the Apartheid Era. Under Apartheid, traditional African music was largely banned from radio and even private play, and groups who performed it were often forced into exile. The four members that became Jabula met in London where they were living after leaving South Africa. The group was formed in 1974. In addition to their own albums, the group also performed with Mike Oldfield for his albums Amarok, Incantations, and Ommadawn.