Indian Music?

A big SECOND to "Meeting by the River" Water Lily is an excellent label and sound is excellent on this...
check any SHAKTI recording with John Mclaughlin.. best ones are from late 70's "Natural Elements".
Second on anything Zakir Hussian.

A cardiologist I work with turned me onto Natacha Atlas, the album something Dangerous is really cool.

Indian with many world intonations added in. Not purely Ravi Shankar, but something to look into if you like the genre but want something a bit more contemporary as well.

There are some names which are always good bets: Ali Akhbar Khan, Nikhil Banerjee, Ram Narayan, Zakir Hussein, Mahapurush Misra. The last two are tabla players, the first three play sarod, sitar and sarangi respectively. They are the best-known and always good but that doesn't mean lesser-known artists can't turn in some great performances.

My own favourite musician is Zia Mohuiddin Dagar on rubra vina. This is an antique instrument that very few know how to play, and Z. M. does the slower movements exclusively: alap and jor. To me it is very profound and meditative music.

Perhaps I should mention that the only living persons I name are Ram Narayan, who is over 80, and Zakir Hussein, who will soon be 60. I would love to know more about the younger generation.

I like all the suggestions listed, although most of them are not "traditional", they are all worth listening to. I was surprised to see the criticism of Ry Cooder as "tired". I think that is one of the best world/hybrid discs and one of the best moments in Cooder's career. It is also one of the rare moments where great music has been recorded to audiophile standards. The separation of the instruments and the mic technique is extraordinary.

I also join the others in suggesting that you can't go wrong with: Ali Akbar Khan

I also suggest looking for recordings by any of these artists: Dr. L. Subramaniam on Karnatic Violin, Amjad Ali Khan on sarod and Ustad Vilayat Khan on sitar

I am a big fan of the "India Archives Series". CD's are $12-$15 on average. I have picked up many of these and have not been let down once.

For younger artists I suggest: Deobrat Mishra (son of Pandit Shivnath), Purbayan Chatterjee and Ranajit Sengupta (although he is now 40 and I guess could be considered not so young)

Hope that helps a bit

Ali Akbar Khan and L. Subramaniam both have LPs on Water Lily Acoustics.Sheila Chandra with or without Monsoon is really britpop.Stick to something a bit more serious.