Hedningarna - Fire (1996)

Hedningarna is a Swedish and, for some years partly Finnish, folk music band that mixes electronics and rock with elements from old Scandinavian folk music. Their music features Yoik or juoiggus, a traditional Sami form of song.
Hållbus Totte Mattson, Anders Stake and Björn Tollin formed Hedningarna in 1987. Hedning is Swedish for heathen, while arna is the plural definite article. Their music studies the roots of the Old Norse culture, including the use of ancient instruments not much used in current Swedish folk music (fiddles, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, etc.). Stake, a trained luthier, also began to invent and build new instruments, to produce new sounds.


Tracklist:
01. Aivoton
02. Tina Vieri
03. Gorrlaus
04. Vargtimmen
05. Joupolle Joutunut
06. Min Skog
07. Kruspolska
08. Tuuli
09. Grodan - Widergrenen
10. Räven

Download: Hedningarna - Fire (1996)
Download Size: 41.11 MB (128Kbps)

Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar and his Music

Ananda Shankar was the nephew of the great sitar player Ravi Shankar. While Ravi played more traditional Indian music, Ananda was known as one of the first musicians to fuse traditional Indian music with western pop and rock early in his career, giving birth to the modern age of Indian music. Towards the end of his career he would even apply this fusion of traditional Indian and Western styles to hip-hop and breakbeat.

In the late 1960s Shankar travelled to Los Angeles, where he played with many contemporary musicians including Jimi Hendrix. There he was signed to Reprise Records and released his first self-titled album in 1970, featuring original Indian classical material alongside sitar-based cover versions of popular hits such as The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash and The Doors' Light My Fire. This album has become an enduring cult classic.[citation needed]

Returning to India in the early 1970s Shankar continued to experiment musically and in 1975 released his most critically acclaimed album, Ananda Shankar And His Music, combines Eastern sitar, Western rock guitar, tabla and mridangam, drums and Moog synthesizers. The result is seemless fusion of jazz and psychedelic rock with funky Indian rhythms. This album is legendary in some circles due to it's inclusion of the tracks 'Streets of Calcutta' and 'Dancing Drums', which were featured on a Blue Note break-beat compilation, and are both considered dance-floor favorites. This album also contains it's share of mellow grooves, which compliment the hard driven Indian style funk well, making for one of Shankar's most well rounded musical efforts.

Year of Release: 1975
Label: EMI India
Genre: Psychedelic, World Fusion
Bitrate: 192kbps

Track List:
1. Streets of Calcutta
2. Cyrus
3. The Lonely Rider
4. The River
5. Vidai (Parting)
6. Back Home
7. Dawn
8. Renunciation
9. Dancing Drums

Download: Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar and his Music
Download Size: 38MB

Anne Dudley & Jaz Coleman - Songs From The Victorious City

Songs From The Victorious City (a unique collaboration) is an album in the world music genre written by Anne Dudley (English Orchestra composer /member of Art Of Noise) and Jaz Coleman (composer / producer / singer for Killing Joke).

On this release, eastern melodies are played by a large cast of actual Egyptian players in Cairo using modern and traditional instruments. The end result was then taken to a studio in London, where Dudley and Coleman added their own touches to create this very rich, full collection of songs.

Year of Release: 1990
Label: China Records
Genre: World Music

Track List
1. The Awakening
2. Endless Festival
3. Minarets and Memories
4. Force And Fire
5. Habebe
6. Ziggarats Of Cinnamon
7. Hannah
8. The Conqueror
9. A Survivor's Tale
10. In A Timeless Place


Bonus time...
I am also including the Ziggarats Of Cinnamon CD single.

Track List
1. The Cinnamon Love Mix
2. Cinnamon Love (7" edit)
3. Techno Pharoah Mix
4. Ziggarats of Cinnamon (LP version)
5. Habebe

Download: Songs From The Victorious City
Download size: 57 MB zip file

Asian Dub Foundation - Enemy of the Enemy

"Their music can best be described as a a cocktail of traditional Indian and Asian music, electro, reggae, dub, hip-hop, along with a dash of punk rock."Asian Dub Foundation formed in 1993 as an outgrowth of the documentary Identical Beat, a film shot at London's Farringdon Community Music House, the site of a series of summer workshops designed to teach Asian children the essentials of music technology. In charge of the workshops were tutor Aniruddha Das and youth worker John Pandit, also a noted DJ; with one of their students, a 14-year-old Bengali rapper named Deeder Zaman, they soon formed a sound system which they called the Asian Dub Foundation. Their music can best be described as a a cocktail of traditional Indian and Asian music, electro, reggae, dub, hip-hop, along with a dash of punk rock.

After each adopted an alias — bassist/tabla player Das became Dr. Das, Pandit became Pandit G, and Zaman became Master D — they gradually evolved into a working band with the 1994 addition of former Higher Intelligence Agency and Atom Spies guitarist Steve Chandra Savale, an innovative performer known for tuning his strings to one note (like a sitar), turning up the distortion unit and playing his instrument with a knife, earning him the nickname "Chandrasonic." Emerging in the midst of considerable anti-Asian violence throughout Britain, the Foundation's early demos landed them a contract with Nation Records, and they recorded their debut EP Conscious in 1994. Deeder Zaman left the band after playing his last concert on New Year's Eve 2000, and the band expanded to include Pritphal Rajput (dhol, tabla), Rocky Singh (drums), MC Spex (vocals) and Akhtarvator (vocals).

Enemy of the Enemy was released in 2003, and it would eventually become ADF's best selling album to date. It featured the track "Fortress Europe", made famous by it's inclusion on the video game Need For Speed: Underground. Enemy of the Enemy also marked the first time that noted musicians collaborated with ADF. Sinéad O'Connor makes a guest appearance on the track "1000 Mirrors", a haunting song about a women serving life in prison for killing her abusive husband. Radiohead's Ed O'Brien also appeared on three tracks (1000 Mirrors, Blowback, and Enemy of the Enemy). Due to the revolving door lineup of ADF, each new album they release tends to be different from the last, but this album would mark a significent point in ADF's history because of the departure of Master D. Lyrically the album doesn't compare to previous albums such as the award winning Rafi's Revenge, or Community Music, however they seem to have perfected their blend of dub basslines, jungle loops, and sitar-influenced rock guitars on this album.

Year of Release: 2003
Label EMI
Genre: World Fusion, Reggae, Dub, Hip-Hop
Bitrate: 128kbps

Track List:
1. Fortress Europe
2. Rise To The Challenge
3. La Haine
4. 1000 Mirrors
5. 19 Rebellions
6. Blowback
7. 2 Face
8. Power To The Small Massive
9. Dhol Rinse
10. Basta
11. Cyberabad
12. Enemy of the Enemy

Download: Asian Dub Foundation - Enemy of the Enemy
Download Size: 48MB