Palabras Urgentes, marks the 50th year of Susana Baca’s extraordinary musical career. With an illustrious life spanning music, teaching and politics from multiple Grammy Awards to becoming Peru’s first black cabinet minister and holding the post of Minister of Culture, Palabras Urgentes is the nexus of all Susana’s experiences and, at the age of 76, is the album she always wanted to create.

In the early 1980s, a particular alchemy between new musical technologies and significant social, cultural, and political transformations in Ghana gave rise to a new style of highlife. Drum machines and synthesisers appeared alongside lilting guitar lines and punchy horns, and the emerging Ghanaian diaspora began incorporating US disco and boogie, R&B, European new wave, and Caribbean zouk and soca into their music.

Let go. Fall in. Follow the spiral, and find your centre. Move and whirl, headbang and hair whip, into a place that is out there and deep within, an altered state where minds open, boundaries fall away and trust - in values, principles, ourselves - is rediscovered, made real.

In November 2022 world-renowned kora player Ballaké Sissoko and acclaimed guitarist Derek Gripper spend just three hours recording a wordless album together. The kora and guitar in the hands of masters - a session where New Ancient Strings meets One Night On Earth.

"VARI" is Varijashree Venugopal’s first original music album, produced by Grammy Award-winning artist Michael League, acclaimed for his work with Snarky Puppy. This album is an enriching exploration of the global soundscape, where Indian classical music meets a diverse array of musical traditions, all brought together by the rhythmic tapestry of Indian percussion. It is a sonic journey with a singular mission: to unite cultures through the universal language of music.

Experience the timeless essence of mariachi music with the remastered edition of Chelo's iconic album, ¡Las Cuentas Claras! Con Chelo. Backed by the exquisite arrangements of Mariachi Oro Y Plata, Chelo's emotive vocals transport listeners to the heart of Mexican culture. With this 2024 release, the partnership between Musart-Balboa and Concord brings forth a rejuvenated sonic experience, preserving the rich heritage of mariachi while infusing it with a modern clarity and depth.

Coming as the fourth release from BBE Music's Middle Eastern Heavens series of re-issues of albums by Lebanese maestro Ihsan Al-Munzer, Orientalissimo Vol. 2 is a collection of Al-Munzer’s progressive synth-led rearrangements of Armenian popular, traditional and folklore melodies. In addition to these signposts of Armenian culture the album also features tracks originally released by Armenian singer Yorgantz as well as a handful of melodies credited to Armenian accordionist Bernard Dededjian.

There is both seriousness and ecstasy on Moksha's second album. There are complex and virtuosic moments, but it also feels like music that arose from the simplest of all starting points, the play between three good fellow musicians. The trio's unique interplay began back in 2012, when they were still students and met to experiment with rhythm, raga and jazz. Their first album, “The Beauty of an Arbitrary Moment”, was released by Jazzland in 2016 and was very well received both at home and abroad. Their debut stands as a key release from a period in Norwegian improvised music characterized by open doors to expression and musicians from all over the world.

With its driving energy and spirited flair, the son has held the essence of mariachi music for more than 150 years. Even today, the modern mariachi dips into the son repertoire to punctuate its performances, evoking boisterous yells and percussive zapateados from its listeners. In 'Sones de Mariachi', multi-Grammy-winning Mariachi Los Camperos makes its mark on the son legacy, powered by the group's lauded signature sound and leader Jesus "Chuy" Guzman's uplifting arrangements. This meticulously curated mix of popular and lesser-known sones rooted in the western Mexican heartland of mariachi tradition is played with the typical virtuosity, superb vocals, and rhythmic precision of one of the world's greatest mariachis.

Born of multiple roots, Nomad ben Stones is a project inspired by the billions of dust particles that each of us sows along the way. From this wandering through the pursuit of life, we explore the possibilities of a music whose boundaries move with the times.

Aba Diop & The Yermande Family and the various constellations of performer groups all have in common the sabar drum, its rhythms, and a captivating live performance at the heart of the music.

Between Calypso, African Folk and Acoustic Reggae, El Señor Igor sings slices of life like a modern-day African storyteller. A pen full of irony, biting words and acerbic words, guitar slung over his shoulder, his 4th album “What we can do tomorrow” wanders between social criticism and urban poetry.

Ethno Catalonia is a 10 day tuneful journey at our music campus in the scenic Mediterranean town of Banyoles (Catalonia), close to a beautiful swimming lake. During the first 5 days participants will immerse in both global folk/traditional music through peer-to-peer song learning, and also in local music and leisure activities. Daily workshops/rehearsals are conducted by our team of professional Artistic Mentors, in order to create and prepare the repertoire of the EthnoCatalonia orchestra, which will perform it in a 3 day concert tour in different venues of Catalonia.

On that evening in Paris, the mikes were on – to conclude a partnership between the Arte Flamenco Festival and Scala Music – but above all, they were awaiting ‘elevation’, the “duende” (a heightened state of expression or emotion) which played its part in the jam-packed auditorium. Rafael Riqueni performed his entire body of work, spanning almost forty years of composition, presented chronologically.

Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin share a fascination with rhythm and the myriad of ways it can subdivide within the beat. Using aspects of jazz, world and experimental musics, each tune settles into a deep groove, digging itself via continuous minimal adjustments into an ever-deeper, eternal groove.