‘Synth chutes, synth ladders, popcorn 808 beats, dirge-y chants and busted sub-woofer hums from inner-galactic soul pioneers Nathaniel Woolridge and Anthony Freeman intertwine to create this hypnotic, mythical 1984 LP from Newark, New Jersey. The most damaged party record ever set to black, or the most partied cry of the heart ever howled into personal space. Probably both.’

Blaxploitation from the Staples and Curtis Mayfield. The title track is all-time knockout soul music: Mavis is startlingly randy, over a masterful, sinuous rhythm. Goddess. New Orleans winningly sublimates I Heard It On The Grapevine; I Want To Thank You is decent, too; Curtis throws in a few Shaft-style instrumentals.
That title track, though.

A close collaborator and friend of The Beach Boys, his was the first issue by their Brother Records imprint. This was cut at Brian Wilson’s house in 1969 and thought to have been lost.

Steve’s truly wonderful radio show On The Wire is being ‘rested’ by the BBC.
Read about it here. Check it out on Mixcloud, live and kicking.
Please write to station manager john.clayton@bbc.co.uk about this heathen foolishness, copying in Head of BBC Local Radio chris.burns@bbc.co.uk.
Chin up, Steve.

This saxophonist came through with the likes of Roy Ayers and Joe Henderson in the sixties, before hooking up with Steve Lacy in Paris in 1973. In this soundtrack composed for a film by his friend Joaquin Lledó — entitled Le Sujet Ou Le Secrétaire Aux Mille Et Un Tiroirs — he was joined by members of the group around Lacy, and diverse co-conspirators including friends from the funk outfit Ice, French accordionist Joss Bassellion, and none other than Jef Gilson at the mixing desk. It’s a dazzling, intensely entertaining blend of modal, cosmic and spiritual jazz, free funk, dirty grooves, heavy jams, bistro boogie and Javanese wah-wah.

‘The first new Sun City Girls release since Funeral Mariachi ten years ago, Live at the Sky Church is a performance that melds their signature alien-jazz improv, Asian-tinged psychedelia, and Middle Eastern meditations together with their ranting psychodrama. An audio and visual recording from Seattle in 2004 shows a group that is both aware and committed to its history, while still demonstrating the power of the experimental to drive an enormous cudgel through the heart of those who believe they have all the answers.’
Includes DVD.
“LONG MAY THEY ISOLATE.”—John ‘Inzane’ Olson (American Tapes, Wolf Eyes, etc).

Deeply dug up, Numero-approved folk and rock covers of songs impossible to delete from the collective unconscious of Pop (however hard you hit the button).
Done-over Boz Scaggs, War, Redbone, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Diamond, John Denver,Glen Cambell, Smokey Robinson, The Carpenters, Joe Cocker, and something ostensibly from Willy Wonka.

Her debut, with Jolene — finally on vinyl.

‘Their vividly definitive statement: haunting tones from an unusual combination of instruments, filtered through multiple layers of reverb and delay. Their music has strong stylistic affinities with the trippy ambience of cosmic and psychedelic rock, but the Taj Mahal Travellers were tuning in to other vibrations, drawing inspiration from the energies and rhythms of the world around them rather than projecting some alternative reality.
‘The electronic dimension of their collective improvising was coordinated, as usual, by Kinji Hayashi. Guest percussionist Hirokazu Sato joined long-term group members Ryo Koike, Seiji Nagai, Yukio Tsuchiya, Michihiro Kimura, Tokio Hasegawa, and the renowned, enigmatic electric violinist Takehisa Kosugi.
‘Films of rolling ocean waves often provided a highly appropriate backdrop for their lengthy improvised concerts. This is truly electric music for the mind and body.’