New Music

Mara Aranda & Solatge: Unearthing the Roots of Ancient Aragon

From World Music Central:

Spanish singer Mara Aranda has been involved in some essential world music projects based in Spain's eastern Mediterranean coast. She was a member of famed band L'Ham de Foc (Mediterranean world music) and Aman Aman (Sephardic). She is back with a new recording that focuses on the music of the ancient kingdom of Aragon. Before Spain became a unified nation, several Christian and Muslim kingdoms existed in the Iberian Peninsula. The kingdom of Araon in eastern Spian included the current autonomous communities of Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The languages spoken in ancient Aragon were derived from Latin and included Castilian (what we currently know as Spanish), Aranese, Catalan and Valencian.

Gifted with a prodigious and powerful voice, Aranda has compiled traditional folk songs from the various regions and gave them new life, with contemporary folk music arragements. The repertory includes Romances (ballads), cantos de trabajo (work songs), melodías de baile de bastones (melodies of cane dances), boleros, bailes de cabezudos (dances of large headed carnival figures), fandangos, and Aranese aubadas. Read more here...

Anna Schaad: Mesmerizing Fiddle Dreams

From World Music Central:

Virtuoso fiddler Anna Schaad embraces the charm and beauty of electronic music on her latest CD, Dream Within a Dream. Schaad uses a combination of acoustic and electric violins and viola. Her research into electronic music forms has her using drum loops, field recordings, samples, MIDI-generated instruments. She is joined by Canadian musician Lauri Lyster on global percussion, Doug Rehfeldt on electric bass, Matt Rehfeldt on cello, David McVittie on flute and harmonium, Hill Hudson on beat boxing, Hadley Frazier on vocals and Gail Smedley on zills.

While most of the pieces have a Celtic and world music influence in the melodies and percussion, the overall sound has a mesmerizing ambient sound that makes the music trance-like. This is topped by Schaad's sultry phrasings on the various fiddles which are extraordinarily beautiful.

Read more here...