#although this was solely started by anakrousis because it has been living in my head rent free for literal years

[andresylupin]

I love how unique Mushishi's soundtrack is, and I love folk and trad songs: voilà ✨

(songs info if you're interested:)

Anakrousis and Hymne au Soleil are from the same 1979 album "Musique de la Grèce Antique" (Music from ancient Greece), by the Spanish ensemble Atrium Musicae de Madrid. They specialised in playing pieces from medieval (or older) time periods. For this specific album they used actual music gathered from ancient papyrus and reconstructed ancient instruments to be as accurate as possible. I highly recommend the whole album, it's haunting.

Зора се е, мале, зазорила (translated as "Daybreak Dawned") is a song from Bulgarian folklore, sung here by the well-known Eva Quartet. (the music and lyrics here are probably an arrangement from a pre-existing folk song but I'm not 100% sure)

木曽節 (Kiso Bushi, literally Kiso's song) is a Japanese folk song from the Kiso district, and as its name indicates, it's a song celebrating the place it originated from. The song flows as does the Kiso river, and it's performed here by the Research Institute for Japanese traditional music (pretty self-explanatory).

Каа-Хем (Yenisei river) is technically not a folk song but Yat-Kha is a Tuvan band that relies heavily on tuvan folk sound (such as khöömei/tuvan throat singing) mixed with punk/rock/metal influences and it's very cool!! And this song is of course celebrating the Yenisei river and its beautiful landscape.

La rivière Tanier is a créole lullaby, lamenting the hardship of life as an old woman fishes in the river. Graeme Allwright created this particular arrangement ; he was a French New-Zealander who spent his life travelling and making folk music. He did a lot of different things throughout both his life and his music career, so I guarantee that you'll find something you'll like if you check out his stuff. Also!! he was bestie with Leonard Cohen!

نامي نامي (Nami Nami or Sleep Sleep) is a traditional lullaby from the Middle-East (probably Egypt ?) in which a mother comforts her child with promises of their father's return. It's performed here by the ODO Ensemble ; they're based in France but their goal is to collect and perform ancient music from all over the world.

The Passing of the Elves: yes it's a soundtrack from The Lord of the Rings so I'm stretching the meaning of "folk" a little bit, but Howard Shore drew heavily from Celtic and Eastern aesthetics and tones when composing the different leitmotivs for the Elves and I like how it sounds :) plus they used the actual Sindarin poem so that's cool!

五木の子守唄 (Itsuki no Komoriuta or Itsuki Lullaby) is, to everyone's surprise, a traditional Japanese lullaby from the Itsuki district! The original lyrics are bit grim (a babysitter exhausted by a crying child) , but this is a beautiful instrumental version arranged by Takasue Shibata, and I thought it made for a nice conclusion to this little journey ☀️🌙💧