A few years ago now, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released the ‘Mickey Hart Collection‘ to preserve and further Hart’s efforts to cross borders and expand musical horizons. Many of Hart’s music projects are now available online.

The Collection begins with a set of albums that include those six forming the “Endangered Music Project,” a collaboration between Hart and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress that presents recordings from musical traditions at risk. Here’s one, The Fahnestock South Seas Expedition: Indonesia.

In Hart’s words:

Music is our talking book, our portal to the spirit world. I hope you will enjoy these audio snapshots of my musical journey. Our new technologies are part of a powerful civilization which is rapidly transforming the world around us. It changes the environment, often in ways that endanger the delicate ecological balance nature has wrought over the millennia. It also brings radical change to cultures. Sometimes that change is empowering. But all too often it endangers precious human ways of life, just as surely as it endangers the environment within which those ways of life flourish. This series is dedicated to the hope that with education, empathy, and assistance, imperiled cultures can survive.