Museum Musica

USA / 1969 / Spiritual Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz This album begins with a powerful metaphor of rainfall, interpreted however you wish: a deluge, an agent of change, a harbinger of storm, a cleansing, a nourishing. Somewhere between the studio and the street, somewhere between academia and instinct, lies this spiritual jazz masterpiece, held up as a mirror to the turmoil of the latter half of the…

USA / 2025 / Chamber Pop, Folk Pop Very fun to hear the duo return after a nine-year absence! Though the fantasy and quirkiness have been traded in for a more streamlined art-pop sound, the charm and the violins remain. An excellent offering for listeners who want pop, want it fast, but also want it clever.

Spain, Greece / 2005 / Catalan Folk, Neo-Medieval Folk, Valencian Folk This continent-spanning album (from Spain to France to Greece and then touching as far east as Iran) boasts an impressive lineup of instruments: bagpipes, corn, cura, daf, daire, guitar, kaval, lauto, ney, oud, rebec, santoor, saz, tabla, and tambourine. I didn’t know cant d’estil even existed until this album introduced me…

France / 2023 / Avant-Folk, Occitan Folk A double vinyl album made by a duo of musicians, on two paths that converge, sometimes in the day, sometimes in the night, but always at the heart of folk music. And in the tradition of the best folk music out there, this is a testament to the places these musicians have seen, the experiences they’ve had, the roads they’ve trodden. Because this music is…

France / 2005 / Occitan Folk Before you sit down to this album, go down into the cellar and pick out a good wine. It doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s good. Because the next time you can choose a different label and vintage, because next time you’ll dine on something different this album has to offer. The metaphor of “recipe” is not a secret here: it’s right there in the title. Now, I’m no…

USA / 2018 / Neoclassical Darkwave, Avant-Folk, Post-Industrial, Free Folk One of the strongest feelings I’ve ever had about being trapped inside music but not restrained. There is so much room to explore, to choose a path, to approach or not approach. It’s like a bedraggled mountain fae girl wandered into an Appalachian mental asylum, so as long as she’s gonna be in there, I’m gonna be here sat…

Greece / 2011 / Entechna, Avant-Folk The World of Darkness concept of Nature and Demeanor, in music form. The way you behave when you meet others, when you interact socially, when you engage with the world outside yourself. And the way you are, unchanging and unchangeable, deep down in the psyche. The festivities are over. The lights have all been turned off, and night has fallen, so the only…

Spain / 2021 / A cappella, Avant-Folk, Traditional Folk A female vocal duet, one soprano and one contralto, add their natural instruments to the river of musical tradition, celebrating femininity in poetry and religion, from Sappho to Hildegard, mostly an a cappella exploration with just a touch of electronics here and there to remind the listener that we’re in the here and now and the ancient…

UK / 2013 / Folk Pop, Singer-Songwriter Established voices in the English folk world, the guitar of Martin Carthy, and even a Chinese zither make an appearance on this lovely little folk album by a lovely little sailor of the folk seas, and though she makes use of electronics here and there, her creativity and dedication to playing with and respecting tradition make sure she doesn’t stray far…

USA / 1975 / Spiritual Jazz, Post-Bop It’s fun that this is the inaugural album of an Italian label that shares the same name as the album, or maybe it’s vice-versa. Some listeners like the envelopes to be pushed off the table so they can be caught, or turned into paper airplanes and chased. But Harper is very good at pushing the envelope in a gentle way, not challenging the ear but also not…

Ukraine / 2025 / Progressive Folk, Ukrainian Folk From what I’ve heard, it’s pretty much impossible to listen to any recent Ukrainian folk (or other genres) without having them reference or be inspired by the resistance to the war that’s still going on in that country (as of this writing). Maya Angelou might know why the caged bird sings, but DakhaBrakha know that the beleaguered bird will once…

Croatia, Poland / 2024 / Avant-Folk, Croatian Folk It is no coincidence that this album has exactly 12 tracks, as it follows the hours, the months, and the seasons in an homage to and revival of pre-Christian mythology and magic permeating sowing and harvest, when the darkened human mind worshiped stars and planets as if they were gods, bending to their inscrutable, capricious influences. Look…

UK / 2026 / English Folk, Progressive Folk I’m not English enough to fully understand the North-South divide, but this Manchester Sunday-morning living-room collective of 11 musicians went out of its way to cobble together folk tunes about the industrial north, set them to their own sprawling, sometimes punkish, arrangements, and maintain an all-acoustic aesthetic that employs drone but doesn’t…

Bittová on violin, Fajt on drums, the former striving for unresolved expression, the latter sometimes falling into a rock groove but more often apt to improvise his patterns and lean into the avant. Bittová’s vocals aren’t nearly as wild as they are on other recordings, and though I prefer her almost “unlistenable” experimentalism, the more standard vocal approach she employs here works for this…