Derya Yıldırım is a singer, songwriter and bağlama-player known for her work together with Grup Şimşek. On two albums and a long series of EP:s, this quartet creates captivating songs filled with deep emotions and high degrees of danceability. Turkish psych-rock, synth pop, funk and jazz are some possible references. A fundamental part of Grup Şimşek's music however, is Anatolian folk music – something that Derya Yıldırım first learned to love through her parents, who migrated from Turkey to Hamburg in Germany as guest workers.

Meet the experimental composer and singer Hatis Noit. Inspired by the great American voice artist Meridith Monk, and by a kind of role playing of sounds, Hatis Noit takes us on a journey exploring the human voice and how it can connect us both with our own memories and with nature.

Her music consists of Layers upon layers of wordless singing. Echoing the sounds of opera, Japanese Gagaku and Bulgarian chorals. Many different voices – all belonging to just one individual. In this episode, she explains how she found her very own unique style.

In this episoide we meet Maya Dunietz, a pianist and composer from Israel, known for her diverse projects within everything from jazz to classical music and sound art. She will tell us about her work documenting and performing the music of the Ethiopian composer, pianist and nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou.

Emahoy was born in Addis Abeba in 1923. As a child she discovered the music of Beethoven and decided to be a composer.

However, when the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie personally put an end to her plans of continuing her music studies in England, Emahoy withdrew from the world to live in a convent. During her years as a nun she continued to write music without really having much of an audience. And perhaps her work would have remained in obscurity, had her old recordings not been re-released by the record label Buda Music in 2006.

And some years after that, our guest on this epoisode Maya Dunitz had fallen in love with the music and decided to find its all but forgotten composer.

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou passed away in the spring of 2023, 99 years old, after this interview was made.

One of the most exciting jazz albums of this year so far is Yeahno Yowouw Land by Swedish all star quintet Langendorf United. In this episode we talk to the bandleader Lina Langendorf, a saxophonist whose curiosity not only took her on a continuing musical exploration into Ethiopian jazz, she's even jammed with non other than Mulatu Astatke, a.k.a the father of Ethio jazz. Before we get to that part of the story, we ask Lina about the first steps of her musical journey.

We talk to Annie Caldwell, singer and forming member of The Staples Jr Singers.

They started out as a group of teenage siblings in 1975, covering their favorite songs by Mavis Staples – hence the bandname The Staples Jr Singers. Most weekends they would play shows across their home state of Mississippi and beyond.

But like many gospel musicians of the time, they lacked the backing of a record company, and instead self-published an album called When Do We Get Paid, to be sold at performances and from the family’s yard.

The band did eventually split up, but now, almost fifty years after they started, their music is embraced by audiences all over the world. This unexpected chapter in Staples Jr. Singer’s career began when the record label Luaka Bop reissued their album.

We'll get to that part, but first we'll ask Annie Caldwell to take it from the top – the beginning of The Staples Jr Singers in Aberdeen, Mississippi 1975.

With a brand new style, from Soweto, South Africa: Meet BCUC – Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness. This seven member group is known for their explosive live shows, built on melodic bass lines, intense drumming and sometimes the conjuring of ancestor's spirits.

In this episode, the two main singers of the group, Nkosi "Jovi" Zithulele and Kgomotso Mokone, talk to Markus Görsch about the group's DIY-philosophy; about their inspiration from punkrock, poetry and indigenous musical styles and ceremonies. And about why their home audience of Soweto was the hardest to win over.

Marina Herlop is a classically trained vocalist and pianist from Barcelona. On her latest album Pripyat, she leaves the signposted road and gets deliberately lost in a magical forest of cut-and-paste piano melodies and bird calls. Like an heir to Meredith Monk, she lets her voice slip between guises: humming, whispering, singing…

She has also experimented with composition techniques from South Indian Carnatic music; one of which is konnakol, where chanted syllables are transformed into percussion. What at first listen might sound like lyrics in a cryptic language turn out to be vocal sounds beyond translation; no stories, just sound allowed to be sound.

Marina Herlop was interviewed by Markus Görsch.

Guedra Guedra a.k.a. Abdellah M. Hassak is a musician and producer from Morocco who explores the nomadic tribal cultures of North and West Africa, tracing the tracks from thousands of years of migration to crossroads of traditions where the continent’s music blossomed.

The sounds that form the backbone of the debut album Vexillology come from a library of field recordings. Choirs, flutes, string instruments; the sound of fire and cicadas; a riff consisting of looped bird sounds; hands clapping and feet stomping.

In this episode, Guedra Guedra talks to Markus Görsch about the process behind this highly imaginative collection of dance tracks.

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Guedra Guedra a.k.a. Abdellah M. Hassak är en musiker och producent från Marocko som utforskar musik från nomadiska stamkulturer i Nord- och Västafrika och hur tusentals år av folkvandringar lett till att traditioner korsats och på så vis skapat kontinentens musik.

Ljuden som utgör stommen i debutalbumet Vexillology kommer från ett bibliotek av fältinspelningar han byggt upp under resor i regionen. Körer, flöjter, stråkinstrument. Ljudet av eld och cikador, ett riff av loopat fågelkvitter. Händer som klappar och fötter som stampar.

I det här avsnittet pratar Guedra Guedra med Markus Görsch om processen bakom denna fantasifulla samling av dansspår.

One of Iran’s most important musicians and composers, Kayhan Kalhor was born to Kurdish parents in Teheran and already as a thirteen-year-old found himself playing in the National Radio and Television Orchestra.

At the age of seventeen his career was abruptly interrupted by the Iranian ­Revolution. Alone, with nothing but a suitcase and his favourite instrument – a kamancheh – he escaped to Europe and later to North America.

Since then he has become an internationally acclaimed soloist and collaborator with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble, the Kronos Quartet, the New York Philharmonic and many others.

In this interview, Kayhan Kalor talks to Markus Görsch about tradition and innovation, about language, love and revolution.

IN SWEDISH:

En av Irans största musiker och kompositörer i modern tid. Kayhan Kalhor föddes i Teheran till kurdiska föräldrar och redan som trettonåring spelade han i den nationella radioorkestern.

Vid sjutton års ålder avbröts karriären abrupt i och med den iranska revolutionen. Ensam med bara en resväska och sitt favoritinstrument, en kamancheh, flydde han till Europa och senare vidare till Nordamerika.

Sedan dess har han blivit en internationellt hyllad solist och samarbetspartner med till exempel Yo-Yo Ma och Silkroad Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, New York Philharmonic och många andra. I den här intervjun pratar Kayhan Kalor med Markus Görsch om tradition och innovation, om språk, kärlek och revolution.

The composer and ­multiinstrumentalist Lea Bertucci works with a combination of performance and sound installations. Alto saxophone and bass clarinet are her go-to instruments, but flutes, organs, and field recordings also play important roles.

In 2021 she released A Visible Length of Light, an album that emerged out of a turbulent year in the USA. The beauty of the ­American ­landscape – beaches, mountains and prairies – is reflected in the compositions. But you can also hear the cities, desolate in lockdown, or as scenes for revolt and chaos. The feeling of alienation in one’s own native country hangs like a shadow over the music.

In this episode, Lea Bertucci talks to Markus Görsch about the physical and social geography of her home country – and about the idea of nature and how to make music inside a giant German bridge.