After a best mate of mine introduced me to Fela Kuti’s works I’ve been real interested in hearing music from other cultures you don’t hear much stuff from. Doesn’t have to be traditional music styles (love it when genres and cultures fuse together, like Masayoshi Takanaka taking influence from Brazilian music), but I’d love to hear that as well!
The Mongolian metal band The Hu fuse tradition instruments with metal styling and a badass attitude that Genghis would approve of
Also their name is great.
If you like The Hu check out Uuhai and Batzorig Vaanchig.
Ah yes the band that gave me tinnitus. Wonderful to see live just make sure you have earplugs and not get stuck by the crowd next to the speakers with two beers and a deaf sound engineer.
Brazil isn’t an obscure country, but there’s an indigenous band called Uakti that builds their own instruments. It’s some of the most unusual music I’ve heard. They also have some classical albums, and one by Phillip Glass that I like to listen to when I’m coming down from a trip.
Al-Namrood (Metal, Saudi-Arabia)
Mdou Mactar (Desert Blues)
Leliță Săftiță (Aromanian folk song)
Hrdza (Folk Rock, Slovakia)
Kamo Mphela (Amapiano, South Africa)
I’m a big fan of Tinariwen who are from Mali
Also: Toe from Japan
Also also: yin yin from the Netherlands
And in a similar vein: l’eclair from Switzerland
Also tbh, if you want a great selection of eclectic artists from all over the world, look up a playlist of artists playing on the West Holts stage of Glastonbury for any given year—when I’m at the festival it’s always my go to stage if I’m feeling like trying something new and it’s rarely disappointed me