Marisa Anderson shares “Sarvi Simin,” taken from her new album The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music vol. 1, out May 22nd. The piece is an interpretation of a song found on “Musical Instruments of the People of the USSR” released by Melodiya Records in 1977, and features an ecstatic duet between Anderson’s guitar and violinist/violist Gisela Rodríguez Fernández.
Anderson elaborates on the piece’s origin and her approach:
“Melodiya Records was the state-run Soviet record label, a monopoly that released a staggering amount and variety of records starting in 1964. The records I accessed for this project all focussed on folkloric ensembles from various corners of the Soviet Union. The records themselves are of varying quality, and the jackets were printed on thin cardboard, with very intricate and beautiful cover art and almost no information about any of the music.
“I transcribed Sarvi Simin during a couple of weeks over the winter of 2025, while traveling around by bus in southern Mexico. During that time I had a dream where the melody of this song mixed with the cumbia rhythms I heard blaring daily out of the bus speakers. Perhaps this dream became the inspiration for using an accordion to drive the rhythm of my version? The melody is very strong and straightforward and I recorded a few different versions of the song, but was never quite satisfied until it came to life as a duet with Gisela Rodríguez Fernández on the violin.”
The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music is a collection of nearly one thousand songs culled from the private record collection of the late Harry Smith. Assembled by Anderson after a chance encounter led to an opportunity to study and explore this treasure trove of music, the Anthology focuses on music from places that the United States has been in conflict with since 1970: Southeast Asia, the USSR and the Arabic and Islamic regions of the world. In Volume 1 Anderson presents her own deeply personal iterations of nine songs from the Anthology. Composed, transcribed and arranged through a process of trial and error, deep listening and research, Anderson charts a musical course from Afghanistan to Vietnam via Yemen, Cambodia and Turkmenistan. Interpretations of compositions ranging from Pakistani qawwali to Syrian taqsim are played with Anderson’s deft and practiced hands.
The ongoing project of the Anthology centers curiosity and a commitment to deep listening as it seeks to build bridges with communities and cultural practices from across the globe. Anderson openly acknowledges the limitations she was working with which include an historic lack of access to traditions outside of US markets and frames of reference, improper documentation within the source material, and the need to operate within a finite amount of time for explorations of vast cultural traditions. For Anderson, these are key pieces to the dialogue. “I am a musician, not an ethnomusicologist, or an anthropologist,” Anderson notes. “I’m curious about how music is made, organized and shared. I am interested in how people and music move across the world, how war, migration, nomadism, colonization and contemporary and historical economic dynamics affect music and musicians. What is the musical relationship of people to place? How is that relationship altered when shifting borders or global conflicts curtail movement or force migration into or away from a place? What do we carry with us when we leave home, and what do we bring home from faraway places?”
Recently, Anderson toured New Zealand with drummer Jim White and Australia solo. She will continue to tour extensively throughout 2026, including a lengthy US tour this Spring throughout May and June and a set at End of the Road Festival in the UK in September.
A portion of the album’s proceeds will go to Tamizdat, supporting international cultural mobility for artists.
