I love folk songs, prepare for my sperging XD
Sometimes I wonder if what we listen to know is only in a distant semblance of what it was. And sometimes you can't help but think how many modern songs will survive the test of time and can mass culture become folklore in its own way.
Отава Ё (Otava Yo) has nice covers of traditional songs, however, I can't say they don't introduce modern elements and instruments at all.
For example, this music video details an old Russian wedding tradition as it survived to XIX-early XX century, but not in it's entirety (for the artistic purposes, probably) - and has modern motor on a boat at the end. Still, a nice song and a nice video:
Here's their modern take on an old Russian fighting song:
Western Slavic tradition is also nice, there are more modern takes, as here, in Rusin song from Carpathian Mountains by band
Hrdza (Rusin are people of a very small Slavic ethnic group that lives in Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, and in Germany as well):
And some projects, like these Polish singers from
Laboratorium Pesni, preserve more traditional elements in their covers:
They also do covers of Eastern and Southern Slavic songs. Here is the most popular song from a Southern Slavic tradition, covered by them:
And then, since Finnish music was mentioned earlier, there is this band,
Värttinä:
People say their old albums were better, so keep that in mind if you want to listen to more of their songs.
And... since there were a lot of Finns in Karelia region, which is a part of Russia right now, there's this band doing old Karelian songs:
I found them a while ago, but only just found they did a cover of a song, preserved by Finnish-
American immigrants to early USSR. Not exactly folk, but an interesting part of history, detailing how young and naive Communists came to build a bright new future... you all know how it ended. The song is cheerful, though - it's literally a propaganda piece, with a little bit of humorous description of hardships:
EDIT: To conclude, as this is Kiwi Farms, well-known for support of the nation of Israel, I would also like to mention Jewish band, singing songs in Yiddish. My favorite song by them is "Traktorist":
