B ehind this gorgeous collection of folk tunes from Southeast Asia, Soviet Russia and the Islamic and Arabic worlds lies the legacy of two Americans: the peyote-dropping 78rpm collector Harry Smith (whose 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music presented folk, blues and country recordings from the 1920s and 1930s) and the exploratory guitarist Marisa Anderson , whose back catalogue is steeped in tradition and improvisation. In 2023, she begged for time in Smith’s shuttered archives, discovering hours of non-American music, before learning to perform and share it. Marisa Anderson: The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music Vol 1 Here, Anderson interprets nine of these tunes, pointedly taken from regions shaped by major US conflicts since her birth in 1970. While her fascinating liner notes track what is lost and found when trying to translate these compositions, their universal musicality still cuts through.…