‘Oud-player with The Handover, Eissa was mentored by two legendary figures in Egyptian music: composer and multi-instrumentalist Abdo Dagher, and oud master Hazem Shahin. The music here is heavily rooted in both Egyptian classical music and a number of different folk music traditions, but it goes its own way, through expansive and intricate original compositions.
‘The epic title track, with Eissa playing oud exclusively, takes up two thirds of the album. It seamlessly transitions into heart-stopping recitation of the thirteenth century poet Baha´ al-din Zuhayr… serious, loving, tender and insistent, all at once. Visionary and virtuosic, but at the same time warm and close.
‘A future classic.’

Astounding 1982 conjurations of ancient ragas on the Roland TB-303 and TR-808 synths which would define Acid. Pulsating, minimal grooves; a living Indian antecedent of House.

Released in cooperation with Singh’s estate. With a sixteen-page LP booklet containing previously-unpublished photos and two new essays. Remastered; luxuriating over four sides for maximum aural impact.

‘The mesmeric bass lines, the spare simplicity of the arrangements and the constant motion make the whole work a proper piece of electro history, akin to Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4 for its understated visionary importance’ (Mojo).

This is terrific.
Brimming with saudade, an atmospheric, engrossing, organic blend of the gorgeous folk music of northern Ecuador’s indigenous communities, and tentative, crafted, soulful electronica.

‘Mala Fama is a Kichwa sound-artist from Ibarra, Ecuador, inhabiting — and creating — multiple worlds at once, while being rooted in Indigenous pride and power. Jichushka is a Kichwa word meaning lonely, or abandoned. Here, grief is re-cast as a pathway to liberation.
‘The album was recorded between 2016-2022. Home studio sessions facilitated close collaboration with a network of artists drawn from Andean musical lineages such as marimba, vallenato, and cumbia — including Afro-Ecuadorian group Duo Anjoa, vocalist Catalina Ortiz from coastal Esmeraldas, Ibarra-based multi-instrumentalist Luis Lema, and Quixosis. The album builds on peaceful ambient compositions as much as heavy sequencing, inviting melancholic remembrances of times and spaces that no longer exist.’

Warmly recommended. Like nothing else. Check it out!

His first album; released in 1967 by Philips.
‘On the eve of the rise of Tropicalismo and electric guitars, the Bahian artist’s guitar is the star of the arrangements orchestrated by Carlos Monteiro e Souza, Dori Caymmi, and Leonardo Bruno. Social, political, and religious issues are transformed into sambas, bossa nova, and classic carnival song, as well as Northeastern rhythms. Gil calls for the people’s attention on the title track, a formidable collaboration with Torquato Neto, also co-author of A Rua, a precocious and bittersweet nostalgic baião. His passion for Bahia spreads like the waters in the lyrical Beira-Mar, composed with Caetano Veloso. Equally poetic is Gil’s vision of the Soviet spacecraft’s moon landing in Lunik 9: ‘Maybe there’s no more moonlight to illuminate my song.’. The young people are called to see truth prevail in a carnival filled with political significance in ‘Ensaio Geral.’ Ancient festivities are recalled in O Rancho da Rosa Vermelha, written with Torquato and Geraldo Vandré, while samba schools get a shout out in Mancada, a great samba full of bossa nova. Written with João Augusto, the brilliant Roda stands out for its rhythmic inventiveness and critical lyrics. A celebration of northeastern resistance, Viramundo is a collaboration with Capinan, as is the nostalgic Água dos Meninos. The simple Maria (Me Perdoa, Maria) is the album’s romantic moment. Sertanejo faith and its social contours are the theme of Procissão, one of Gilberto Gil’s most beautiful and important songs, which closes the album.’

‘At 36 years old, in exuberant form, revisiting songs of his which hit for other artists, like Bastidores (which revived Cauby Peixoto’s career) and Morena de Angola (a smash for Clara Nunes). Released in December 1980, when Brazil was rehearsing its redemocratization even in the throes of continuing political violence, Vida dicloses an artist emerging from censorship. In the irresistible dancehall samba Deixa a Menina, he relishes a feminist response to Geraldo Pereira’s syncopated classic Sem Compromisso: ‘Behind a sad man, there’s always a happy woman / And behind that woman, a thousand men, always so kind.’ The Cubano title track spotlights a character near death, looking back with bittersweet ambivalence, and tightly holding on. ‘Light, I want light,’ sings Chico, threading Goethe’s famous last words into the sublime orchestration of Francis Hime, who creates the masterful arrangements on ten of the twelve songs, elucidating the delicacy of classics like Mar e Lua and Qualquer Canção, and lending the appropriate grandeur to Fantasia. Tom Jobim contributes the arrangement and piano of the masterpiece Eu Te Amo, co-written with Buarque. Another triumph is the bolero-style Bye Bye, Brasil, co-written with Roberto Menescal, humorously reviewing the profound transformation of Brazil during the previous decade.’

A bonafide MPB classic.

Proper socialist to the bone. Great novelist, too.

A stupendous haul of music by farmers turned musicians working out of DIY rural studios; drawn from the past decade by Sahel Sounds for its new imprint.
The top artists of the scene — Dickson Gawani, Bala Zaaku, Yaa Naara and others — ranging across styles and subjects, from political commentary to warrior clan rhythms.
Extensive liner notes, with artist interviews, cultural history, and song translations.
Hyper-electronic and densely percussive, moody and transgressive, pulsating and bleeping, body-rocking… this is terrific. Don’t miss it.

Rootsy, state-of-the-art Afrobeats.

Originally released on Philips Ethiopia in 1973. A mixture of modern and traditional instruments marks the stages of an Amhara wedding. Wedding photos and liner notes inside.

Wild, psychedelic, salsa-spiced, Peruvian cumbia.

In the late 1960s, the coastal city of Paramonga, just a three-hour drive north of Lima, gave rise to a vibrant music scene shaped by surf, rockabilly, and tropical sounds. Blending cumbia with guaracha, salsa, and guaguancó, and emerging styles like chicha —with their psychedelic guitars, Fender amplifiers, hot percussion, and wah-wah pedals —  Los Orientales would shape the musical identity of the region.
Drawing from the LPs Con Sabor Tropical in 1972 and Tremendo Ritmo the following year, plus numerous 45s, this is a comprehensive review of the sound and spirit of Los Orientales de Paramonga at their peak.

From seventies Guinea-Bissau, a captivating, poignant blend of anti-colonial militancy and the knot of homesickness, regret, loss and melancholy at the heart of saudade. Sung in Guinean Kriol, and reviving traditional musical genres like Gumbé, lavished with jazz, Latin, funk and general dancefloor nous, José & Cobiana Djazz went down a storm nationally, hugely influencing local bands like Super Mama Djombo, and hailed by giants like Orchestra Baobab, Letta Mbulu and Miriam Makeba (with whom Zé Carlos recorded his only solo album).
Lua Ki Di Nos, The Moon Is Ours, is a mixture of thumping, blistering high-life, with burning horns and mesmerising guitar lines, for dancing, and sublime, swaying, moodily contemplative body-rockers. The mournful Na Kolonia, for example, is knockout. Locked up for his politics on Ilha das Galinhas, a few miles off the coast of Bissau, the singer wonders what has become of his friends. ‘Where is Sara? Back at the colony. Where is Saidu? Back at the colony. Uncle Malam, tell them not to cry, not to suffer. One day we’ll be back in Bissau, a day that is slow to arrive. Our brothers from Bissau, don’t forget about us. If you think that we’re dead, we haven’t died, we’re waiting here.’
Ace.

Al Ghaba!

Three ravishingly soulful, wondrous ragas in the Hindustani Indian classical manner, superbly played on sarod and tabla.

Mohini is an enchantress, sometime slayer of demons.

‘Though one long piece, New Old Medicine moves through several unofficial chapters. It originates in the psychic depths with a pensive melody. Gradually solidifying, the organ’s first solo ushers the piece into a swaying, reverent dance. This dance nears its end with a vigorously percussive section on oud, handing it off to the violin for a climactic solo. A momentary pause, then the rhythm thickens, and the musicians ride untethered through the midnight. This frenzy is followed by a calm repose on placid water. But this calm is merely a deep inhale before the final charged ascent into cosmic rapture.’

His second LP is foundational bossa. With the spotlight on acoustic guitar and his caressing voice, these are spare, intimate renditions of songs which would become much-versioned standards, severally revisited by Valle himself. Listen out for the blueprints of Astrud Gilberto’s hits The Face I Love and So Nice, for example.

LP back in.