!earshot Top 200 of 2021

World Music

Music has always been a big part of Sara Saljoughi’s life. “Growing up, my parents were always playing out-there music in the house and having lots of dinner parties where my Dad would play Persian traditionals on harmonica into the night. I grew up pretty obsessed with music.” Today she does two radio shows at Montreal’s CKUT 90.3FM, is the Music Director there, recently started a label and plays in a band. Sounds like she’s still obsessed by music.

Both programs she does at CKUT are collective efforts combining the efforts of several contributors. New Shit (Mondays, 3PM to 5PM) is a magazine format show about music focusing on new Fig Records was basically born out of hearing music that I thought was awesome and having a good feeling about working with the people who made it releases, interviews with artists and sessions with Montreal bands. World Skip the Beat (Mondays, 12PM-2PM) features traditional music from around the world. Before moving from Toronto six months ago she was doing a show revolving around “indie rock, psych, folk, country, etc.”

That kind of diversity of taste is reflected in the label Saljoughi has just started. “Fig Records is pretty new. The first release is an EP by a band from Toronto called The Saffron Sect called "Phosphorous Flash" and will be out very shortly.” More releases are in the works including a compilation of traditional folksongs reworked by artists such as Edgar Breau (of Simply Saucer), Simon Finn, Marissa Nadler, Matt Murphy, Castlemusic, Danny Dollrod and Planet Earth. “Fig Records was basically born out of hearing music that I thought was awesome and having a good feeling about working with the people who made it.”

With the time she has left, Saljoughi is one half of Not Now, a long distance music project with Torontonian Melissa Williams. And when all that isn’t enough, well, “I like to paint and cook too…” she says.

You can hear New Shit and World Skip the Beat on Monday afternoons on CKUT 90.3FM or online at www.ckut.c. Here are some more World music shows across the land.

All Over the Map on Co-op Radio 102.7FM in Vancouver, BC
Sundays from 11AM to 1PM PDT
Online at www.coopradio.org

Acoustic Roots on CHUO FM89.1 in Ottawa, ON
Thursday from 2PM to 3PM EDT
Online at www.chuo.fm

Global Rhythms on CIUT 89.5FM in Toronto, ON
Sundays from 3pm to 6pm EDT
Online at www.ciut.fm

Pandemic Pulse on CHLY 101.7FM in Naniamo, BC
Mondays from 4PM to 6PM PDT
Online at www.chly.ca

Eclectic Folk on CFUV 101.9 FM in Victoria, BC
Thursdays from 8AM to 10am PDT
Online at http://cfuv.uvic.ca/