hellooooo, melonland!
first of all, can't wait to deep dive on some of the stuff mentioned here--i love going down musical rabbitholes.
second of all, i scrounged together some recs of my own. specifically, i went through my
rateyourmusic page and looked for any non-anglosphere/j-pop options. here's what i got...
ahmed malek - algerian composer. he's on my "instrumentals to read/write to" playlist.
hailu mergia - ethiopian jazz artist. dude's got a large body of work and also features heavily in my reading/writing instrumentals playlist. really quite delightful.
faye wong - lovely dreamy mandopop to check out if you haven't already...
memory drawers - i genuinely don't even recall how i found these guys, but they're a lovely manila-based band doing great indie pop-rock stuff.
grace jones - probably the biggest name i'm mentioning here and yes one squarely in the anglosphere but!! i like her stuff!!! british-jamaican legend who was also a mode and actress. started in disco and then became a new wave legend.