With a freshness, simplicity and directness missing from his estimable later work, this 1977 inauguration of Fourth World still retains its magic. Microtonality and the other lessons of his three years with Pandit Pran Nath articulate a blend of electric-era Miles, Terry Riley and raga, featuring processed trumpet over a bed of mbira, talking drum, kanjul and tabla, and recordings of the sea, barking dogs, tropical birds and night creatures. From Don Cherry’s imminent, like-minded Codona project, Nana Vasconcelos is in full effect.

Songs and ceremonies of the Yoruba, Dahomean, and Kongo-Angolan religions, performed by Marcus Portillo Dominguez, Candido Martinez and others, recorded in Cuba in the late 1950s by Lydia Cabrera.

New recordings invoking the grand traditions of Turkish psych with passionate recastings of tripped-out surf, Cambodian rock, Saharan guitar, electric Thai; even a little Sun City Girls post-punk.

Beginning in 1967 with El Malo, Lavoe was the vocalist on ten legendary studio albums by the Willie Colón Orchestra, before going solo in the mid-70s. Produced by Colón, this hallowed third album under his own name is a stone classic.
It kicks off with his career-defining hit El Cantante, written by Rubén Blades, taking the point of view of a star performer reflecting on his humanity and vulnerabilities when he steps off the stage. It closes with another smash: a joyful, mambo-inspired reimagining of the 1930s Cuban anthem Songoro Cosongo.
Rolling Stone magazine recently ranked Comedia number three of the 50 Greatest Salsa Albums of All Time, declaring that it transformed the genre into ‘high art… a spiritual experience.’

‘Eighteen dedications, each hybrid and different, but driven by an utterly personal approach to bebop, Brazilian jazz, Africa and Brazilian roots; thronged with his signature battery of whistles, screams, scales, keyboard, kettles, spoons, squeeze toys, children’s voices, prepared piano and geese calls; with the band adding native instruments like pandeiro, surdo, caixa, apitos, bonecos and agogos, besides saxophones, flute, electric piano, electric bass and so on. Musicians and genres such as Terry Riley, Frank Zappa and Weather Report, Javanese gamelan and Indonesian kulintang come to mind, but there is no real overlap: Pascoal has his own special brew.’
His first recording with his band in fifteen years. “My music is not commercial; it’s not like selling bananas or soap. I’m not in a hurry to record.”

Electrifyingly intense Chaoui music from the Aurès region of Algeria, booted into the future, with drum machines, phased gesba flute and reverbed-out vocals.

Possession and funeral songs and drumming, full of Africa, but sustaining its Indian Carib roots.

The French avant-garde quartet, four years in, improvising with instruments from Western, African, Middle-Eastern, and Far-Eastern cultures. Recorded for Futura in 1971, this is their sole album. “We just wanted the sound, the raw sound-texture, before being treated and shaped by any cultural code.”

Irresistible 1950s mento — singalong tunes, ebulliently performed, over-spilling with scandal, smut and impudence, sex, dancing and booze, word-play, jokes and up-to-the minute social commentary, and general love for life.

Following in the footsteps of Bela Bartok across Transdanubia, the Highlands, the Great Plain: marvellous recordings over thirty years of hurdy-gurdy, cymbalum, shepherd’s pipe, bagpipe, popular song.

A landmark blend of MPB, soul, and funk, from 1975.

The landmark 1968 debut recording of pianist Ibrahim Khalil Shihab, aged twenty-two; also featuring terrific young saxophonist Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi, Coltrane acolyte, on the verge of huge acclaim for his LP Yakhal’ Inkomo.

Scandalously, Paypal blocks anyone trying to buy this from us, because of the artist’s Arabic name.

‘The beating heart of the golden age of Ethiopian music, the Ibex Band was the driving force behind such stars as Aster Aweke, Tilahun Gessesse, Girma Beyene, and Mahmoud Ahmed. Led by bassist Giovanni Rico and guitarist Selam Seyoum, Ibex relentlessly reshaped Ethiopian music, blending traditional 6/8 rhythms with Western influences like Motown, and knocking out more than 250 albums, 2,500 songs.
‘Stereo Instrumental Music is a rare gem from this era, recorded in 1976 at the Ras Hotel Ballroom in Addis Ababa.’

‘Mind-melting West Javanese gong pop, recorded in 2007 at Jugala studios in Bandung, based on a Javanese secular village music and dance tradition known as ketuk-tila, which was transformed into a popular studio music in the early 1960s by the producer Gugum Gumbira, founder of Jugala. With vocals by Idjah Hadidjah, one of the key historic voices of jaipongan, the situation here is disorientatingly heavy, low bpm gong pressure coming straight from the originators. It is a much less dainty affair than classical Javanese gamelan, and less febrile than the fully automatic Balinese variant. Hadidjah’s golden voice sews together shifting polyrhythms that would baffle a watchmaker; the whole is embroidered by rehab and underpinned by Mariana Trench level bass drops. A second disc features a set of thoughtful electronic reworkings’ (Frances Gooding, The Wire).

Rawly funky blends of Banaadiri rhythms from southern Somalia with influences from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa — nuff Ethiopiques — featuring stinging Dhaanto guitar licks and hot brass, fronted by Mogadishu’s finest vocalists.
Drawn from cassettes recorded between 1982 and 1987 in the secret studio of the Al-Uruba hotel, and live sessions in the basement of the national theatre.