The new global wave of ethnic music

[lashto]

I recently discovered the excellent music recommendations thread https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/artists-you-have-discovered-lately.29/. Took me a while to go through it, many thanks for lots of new (for me) and interesting artists!

However, that thread is mostly US and/or english-language specific, so I'll try to "fix" that a bit.
Lately there is a (more or less) global back-to-the-roots movement and many cool traditional/local/ethnic-sounding bands have emerged. I think this Youtube comment best summarizes the whole trend:
"Between Mongolian rock, Swedish power metal, Mexican rap, and Nordic folk metal; I can't understand a word my Spotify playlist is saying. "

Probably the most prominent example are the Mongolians form TheHu. They are not really new anymore with >40mil Youtube hits and IIUC they'll be part of the Starwars universe soon (actually I am quite surprised that noone posted them before).

... more examples to follow when I find some time to parse Youtube. It'll be mostly EU-stuff from my side, hopefully others can jump in and cover the rest of the world

 

[DChenery]

Mongolian Metal & Mongolian Folk have been great hits in the original "What are we listening to thread". Living in Malaysia, and doing a lot of traveling in Indonesia, I have been exposed to the"Bamboo Bands". Traditionally they played in the lobbies or bars of the expat hotels, but slightly smaller versions were (prior to the current hostage crisis) popping up as buskers. Some are good, many are bad!! The best play traditional songs, but unfortunately the norm is now becoming cover bands for pop songs. Anyway, here is a vid from Youtube.

 

[Asylum Seeker]

Mongolian Metal & Mongolian Folk have been great hits in the original "What are we listening to thread". Living in Malaysia, and doing a lot of traveling in Indonesia, I have been exposed to the"Bamboo Bands". Traditionally they played in the lobbies or bars of the expat hotels, but slightly smaller versions were (prior to the current hostage crisis) popping up as buskers. Some are good, many are bad!! The best play traditional songs, but unfortunately the norm is now becoming cover bands for pop songs. Anyway, here is a vid from Youtube.

Kecapi suling
Degung

 

[Wombat]

I recently discovered the excellent music recommendations thread https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/artists-you-have-discovered-lately.29/. Took me a while to go through it, many thanks for lots of new (for me) and interesting artists!

However, that thread is mostly US and/or english-language specific, so I'll try to "fix" that a bit.
Lately there is a (more or less) global back-to-the-roots movement and many cool traditional/local/ethnic-sounding bands have emerged. I think this Youtube comment best summarizes the whole trend:
"Between Mongolian rock, Swedish power metal, Mexican rap, and Nordic folk metal; I can't understand a word my Spotify playlist is saying. "

Probably the most prominent example are the Mongolians form TheHu. They are not really new anymore with >40mil Youtube hits and IIUC they'll be part of the Starwars universe soon (actually I am quite surprised that noone posted them before).

... more examples to follow when I find some time to parse Youtube. It'll be mostly EU-stuff from my side, hopefully others can jump in and cover the rest of the world

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/mongolian-metal.12905/#post-383866

 

[DChenery]

Kecapi suling
Degung

Band terbaik dari Manado. Juga scuba diving terbaik di dunia. (Sorry, you'll have to excuse my Bahasa. Way too old to learn a second language, just pidgin).

 

[Wombat]

For you listening pleasure:

https://heavymag.com.au/10-indigenous-bands-you-need-to-hear/

I wouldn't call metal-music traditional ethnic.

 

[DChenery]

Band terbaik dari Manado. Juga scuba diving terbaik di dunia. (Sorry, you'll have to excuse my Bahasa. Way too old to learn a second language, just pidgin).
Di mana di Bali? Kami mencintai Pemuteran dan Puri Jadi. Bebak Betutu Hilang
(Hope I got that right. The Mrs is trying to help)

 

[Asylum Seeker]

Yeah, Manado folk think God is from Manado. Plenty of great diving spots, on par or superior to Manado throughout the archipelago. Rinca, Tukang Besi archipelago, Raja Ampat just to take off a few...we live in the central part of the island...

Band terbaik dari Manado. Juga scuba diving terbaik di dunia. (Sorry, you'll have to excuse my Bahasa. Way too old to learn a second language, just pidgin).
Di mana di Bali? Kami mencintai Pemuteran dan Puri Jadi. Bebak Betutu Hilang
(Hope I got that right. The Mrs is trying to help)

 

[lashto]

thanks for breaking the ice @DChenery , cool instruments and sound.
@Wombat & others: sorry for missing that, hope the ones below are newer. And that's a nice collection of 10x ethnic-metal; huge amount of it around EU too and the hardcore sound seems to fit very well with all local cultures.

And a quick note before starting with the EU examples: unfortunately the european past is not exactly nice and some of this stuff might have historical roots/connotations that could be offensive. And some youtube comments are as crude and grrr as they get. Hopefully we can just listen the beauty of the music and ignore that kind of stuff.


Starting from the ~middle of EU with some medieval/baroque music from Germany

... and similar from the Netherlands

There is quite extensive EU-wide fusion, here's a band with german/baroque name and sound but apparently it's a Portuguese guy

... and an Italian band playing techno-shake Scottish bagpipes

And of course there is also a revival wave of central european Teutonic/Templar/Christian sound and culture:

... and on a lighter note a beautiful rendition of Nothing Else Matters by the (mostly) german GregorianMasters

Hope you enjoyed it and more follow from other EU parts.

 

[Neddy]

More great new discoveries to listen to - Thanks!
Don Cherry spent a lot of time traveling the world and learning new musics and instruments - 1975?
I wish he was still around today.

 

[Jimbob54]

For you listening pleasure:

https://heavymag.com.au/10-indigenous-bands-you-need-to-hear/

I wouldn't call metal-music traditional ethnic.

In foreign parts they just call it music too

 

[lashto]

Moving on to Eastern Europe which (in theory) should be the best ground for fusion/ethnic styles.

Bit of history since this part of the world is probably not so well known: the ancient EasternEU culture is Celtic and Thracian (i.e. the well known Greeks/Macedonians and the lesser known Illiryans, Dacians and Schytes). Then comes a thick cover of Slavic-culture (think russian) and many other cultural influences from all the migrating tribes that roamed Europe during ~1000 years of so called dark-ages.
Hope that bit of history helps. Also to ease navigation I tried to add references to US/english bands that are (at least somewhat) close in style..


Here's a "dacian" band with a kind of DeadCanDance/Enya style, singing about an ancient thracian rain ritual.

...and the same ritual in a more traditional Bulgarian-voices style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f9XYWzY_Ns
... and in case you missed that reference, here are some pretty amazing Bulgarian "cosmic voices" from an older video with an american introduction to easy in the US members https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ4LCejQg8o

A sort of follow-up to Michael Jackson's Earthsong. Singing about the EU wood fires ... yes we also have lots of those lately.

Same guy from the video above singing as a thracian BobMarley

.EDIT: the post was too video-heavy, had to split it in 3 parts

Also, the eastern counterpart of the Gregorian choir, the Byzantine orthodox choir. On trap rhythm by a guy names cvnuvbis

 

[lashto]

.
Prodigy-style dub on ancient thracian rhythms ... should be quite a delight for bass heads on closed headphones
@amirm this should also be an very good tune for your loud, rattle-the-cups headphone tests

.
.. and from the same band, an artsy dub about the greek-tracian myth of going into the underworld

.
.
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A psychedelic tune with ancient thracian instruments. Kinda reminds me of Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii

.
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And the east european Red Hot Chili Peppers

and more of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Ig8m5uxRvhk
.
.
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EDIT: thanks to @Aldoszx for pointing that parts of Thracia were missing from my list so
...a sample of beautiful Serbian/Ilyrian voices

...and a taste of Slavic war drums

... and to bring the genre-mix to the max, some "slavic medieval folk trap" from the same region

 

[lashto]

.
And a few east European additions to @Wombat's list of global ethnic metal
...an artsy, progressive trash band

... and another similar one

... and some more powerful thracian metal. I found the whole concert quite good even though I'm not much of a metal/thrash fan .. my favorite (and I'd say most ethnic) part starts around ~21:50.

... and even more metal power

... that should be enough EU-stuff for a while .

Hopefully more people can contribute similar ethnic stuff from other parts of the world. I for one really enjoy checking new sounds/instruments/styles, even if it's not my (musical) cup of tea.

 

[Aldoszx]

Iashto, this is romanian music. Or, more exactly, romanian&moldavian music.
But i suppose you know that.

 

[lashto]

@Aldoszx In terms of modern geography that's indeed music from (mostly) Romania and also Moldavia, Bulgaria and Ukraine. Which is pretty much the ancient Thracia. I would call all these bands and tracks "thracian sound" .. but that's just my personal view, not some well known or widely accepted definition.
And btw, something from modern Serbia (ancient Ilyria) is missing from my "tracian mix", feel free to add if you know some bands from that region.
Nevermind, should be "fixed" now .. with an almost perfect of Thracian melange

@Neddy cool jazz, added him to my list.
Might gather some new school EU jazz in a later post. Meantime you may wanna check Chick Corea .. in case you somehow missed him

 

[lashto]

Moving to Scandinavian north and starting with some (very) easy stuff ... and no, not as easy as Abba or Roxette

Really good jazz/rock singer from Norway. With a clip-choice that should be easiest for english ears. I find her scandinavian language stuff even better, just check related Youtube clips

And another very good singer from Sweden (I think). With a pretty stunning cover of Kiss' "I Was Made for Loving You".

An amazing singer/composer from Denmark with a somewhat hard to pinpoint style

And another one of those amazing female voices, with a sample of pure Scandinavian sound

... next post will cover some "tougher" Scandinavian stuff with much more ethnic/local flavor

 

[Buster]

thanks for breaking the ice @DChenery , cool instruments and sound.
@Wombat & others: sorry for missing that, hope the ones below are newer. And that's a nice collection of 10x ethnic-metal; huge amount of it around EU too and the hardcore sound seems to fit very well with all local cultures.

And a quick note before starting with the EU examples: unfortunately the european past is not exactly nice and some of this stuff might have historical roots/connotations that could be offensive. And some youtube comments are as crude and grrr as they get. Hopefully we can just listen the beauty of the music and ignore that kind of stuff.
Hope you enjoyed it and more follow from other EU parts.

My favorite European fusion is Klezmer music it maybe the first ''world music'' ever created.

 

[TheM]

Hi @lashto, and hi to all of you.

Here are some of the artists from Serbia.
First one is not strictly ethno, even he have some touches with ethno, but he is more World music.

Boris Kovach

Slobodan Trkulja | Balkanopolis

Slobodan Trkulja feat Josipa Lisac

Teofilovic Brothers feat Miroslav Tadic

 

[watchnerd]

This all seems familiar.

Oh, right: