The internationally acclaimed Silk Road Ensemble has a new recording titled Off the Map, which is the group's first independent recording, released on the World Village label. Produced by the Silk Road Project and In A Circle Records, Off the Map is a testament to the close collaborative spirit of the Silk Road Ensemble.

The album features new works commissioned from four celebrated contemporary composers: Osvaldo Golijov, Gabriela Lena Frank, Evan Ziporyn and Angel Lam, performed by fifteen members of the musical collective, including international stars Kayhan Kalhor, Wu Man, Cristina Pato and Wu Tong.

Irish band The Unwanted has released a new recording titled Music from the Atlantic Fringe. The songs and tunes of the Atlantic Fringe—the combined traditions from Ireland to Appalachia and beyond—are the result of generations of movement and migration, of leave-taking and homecoming, back and forth across the ocean in an endless tide of cultural exchange. Lyrics and melodies borrowed from one land wash ashore on another, only to return again later transformed, peopled with new characters and set in different modes.

The Unwanted are Dervish’s Cathy Jordan, American musician Rick Epping and Sligo native Seamus O’Dowd. Between them, they encompass a vast range of the music of Ireland, the United States of America, and other places geographically and culturally linked to these lands that encircle the Atlantic Ocean. From the rich traditions of both sides of the Atlantic have come the source and inspiration of the music of The Unwanted—three Sligo-based musicians, each with exceptional talent and a lifetime dedication to their music.

Rounder Records is pleased to announce the release of Blue Highway’s Some Day: The Fifteenth Anniversary Collection on January 19. The CD is a collection of the best of their Rounder recordings, one cut from a Rob Ickes solo album, and 3 new selections including “Bleeding for a Little Piece of Mind,” which was co-written by Tim Stafford and Darrell Scott and also features Scott on lead vocals.
 
 Having previously released 8 highly acclaimed albums and toured internationally for 15 years, the members of Blue Highway -- Tim Stafford (guitar, vocals), Wayne Taylor (lead vocals, bass), Shawn Lane (tenor vocals, guitar, mandolin, fiddle), Rob Ickes (Dobro, Scheerhorn acoustic slide guitar), and Jason Burleson (banjo, guitar, mandolin, bass vocals) – refuse to rest on their past accomplishments. Instead, they forge ahead, carefully balancing tradition with innovation, continually contributing to the depth and breadth of a flowing bluegrass river.

One of Spain's rising stars, Buika, is back with her 4th studio album entitled “El Ultimo Trago” (The Last Sip). Buika, who was born in the island of Mallorca of Equatorial Guinean ancestors, poses one of the most influential musical voices of our time and in this album she has teamed up with jazz music legend Chucho Valdes to pay homage to Chavela Vargas on her 90th anniversary. Originally from Costa Rica, Chavela Vargas settled in Mexico, where she became famous for her passionate rancheras.
 
 El Ultimo Trago features twelve songs recorded at the beginning of 2009 in Cuba under the direction of Spanish producer Javier Limón. “El Ultimo Trago” includes some of the repertoire that helped build Chavela’s musical career with hits such as “Las ciudades”, “Las simples Cosas”, “Sombras”, “Luz de Luna; among other songs. These were some of the songs that Chavela delivered across the world at some of the most prestigious venue like New York’s Carnegie Hall, Buenos Aires’ Luna Park, Paris’ Olympia, Pedro Almodovar and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu’s films. Now Buika revives these hits with her incredible vocal cords, and by adding fresh new sounds to songs like “Sombras”, a tune that was reborn with a jazz swing, thanks to the talented hands of Chucho Valdes.

A new release by Alekos Vretos is scheduled for release on 10th November 2009 in Athens. The new CD is called Mergin',  and it refers to a merging of East and West. It took Alekos almost 3 years to complete his new Mergin'. The music is a clever mix of Arabic, Jazz, Latin and Greek elements, a form of world jazz. Traditional instruments like the oud, the violin and the nay combined with the piano, drums and the saxophone bring out all of the flavors.

Alekos was determined to record the album on his own terms. He started his own record company called Jadeo Music and he features 3 different labels: Just Adjust Records, Jadeo Music Records and Zymbel Records. Mergin' will be released on the 10th November 2009 by Just Adjust Records worldwide. It will be distributed through the e-store of the company (www.jadeomusic.com) and the MP3 format will be distributed through CDBaby.com. Alekos did not want to take his album to the majors. That was the first thought as the project evolved. He did not want accounting and marketing messing with his music. The music had to be as pure as snow. He succeeded.

Vibraphone and keyboard player, master arranger and bandleader, Mulatu Astatke is one of the all-time greats of Ethiopian music and the creator of his own original music form, Ethio jazz. Through the acclaimed Ethiopiques album series and through featuring on the soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, his music has belatedly reached a global audience and a new, younger generation of fans. In November of last year, he recorded an inspired new album with London psych jazz band The Heliocentrics for Strut's Inspiration Information studio collaboration series. Now, Strut are releasing, for the first time anywhere, the definitive Mulatu career retrospective covering his landmark '60s and '70s recordings in an album titled New York - Addis - London .

Mulatu is a true pioneer of African music. He was the first Ethiopian musician of his generation to travel extensively and to record abroad - he studied in the UK in Wales and at Trinity College Of Music in London, cutting his teeth on the buoyant London jazz scene of the early '60s. He became the first African student to attend Harvard and he lived and recorded in New York, developing a unique sound that fused Western jazz with traditional Ethiopian melodies.

Canadian-Indian singer Vandana Vishwas dedicates her debut recording to Indian poetess Meera Bai, who was born in the western Indian province of Rajasthan in the sixteenth century. When Meera Bai, whio was an adolescent at the time, witnessed a marriage procession and asked “Who will be my bridegroom?,” her nanny showed her a miniature idol of Krishna (Hindu deity) and said ‘Him!’. She married a handsome prince at a very young age. During her marriage, she never lost her childhood infatuation towards Lord Krishna, and prolifically wrote poems of her love for him.

Meera Bai's husband soon died in a war, and although she was expected to burn in his funeral pyre, Meera Bai refused to participate in the then prevalent widow-suicide tradition of sati, publicly declaring that her husband Lord Krishna was still alive! This stance caused her significant duress in a patriarchal society where public expression of romantic feelings was taboo, even if for a divine idol. She was ostracized for her choices and her poetry by her in-laws, but she developed a following of many devotees who joined her in her loving devotion to Krishna. Vandana’s musical exploration of Meera Bai’s life follows her poetry chronologically, with each poem representing a distinct moment in the emotional state of the spiritual leader.
 

Icelandic folk singer Ólöf Arnalds will be releasing her first US release Við og Við through One Little Indian on November 17th. Two fall performances include the opening of the Roni Horn Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art on November 6th where Ólöf performs with Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur rós & Rockwood Music Hall on November 9th.
 
 Ólöf Arnalds has been a prominent figure in her native music scene for several years as a member of Múm. However, it is Ólöf's solo debut, Við og Við that continues to garner widespread acclaim. Produced by Kjartan Sveinsson from Sigur rós, it won Best Alternative Album at the 2007 Iceland Music Awards as well as Record of the Year at Iceland's largest daily newspaper, Morgunblaðið. Despite release only in Iceland, word of mouth earned Við og Við high profile plaudits in the U.S. including a #38 ranking in Paste Magazine's Top 100 Albums of 2007 and #81 in eMusic's editors Best albums of 2008 list.