The second son of King Jammy, Trevor James aka Baby G is at the cutting edge of the new wave of dancehall producers. Jammy’s stalwarts Ward 21 and newcomers Rasta Youth on the mic.

‘In 1972, the country of Rhodesia — as Zimbabwe was then known — was in the middle of a long-simmering struggle for independence from British colonial rule. In the hotels and nightclubs of the capital, bands could make a living playing a mix of Afro-Rock, Cha-Cha-Cha and Congolese Rumba. But as the desire for independence grew stronger, a number of Zimbabwean musicians began to look to their own culture for inspiration. They began to emulate the staccato sound and looping melodies of the mbira (thumb piano) on their electric guitars, and to replicate the insistent shaker rhythms on the hi-hat; they also started to sing in the Shona language and to add overtly political messages to their lyrics (safe in the knowledge that the predominantly white minority government wouldn’t understand them). From this collision of electric instruments and indigenous traditions, a new style of Zimbabwean popular music — later known as Chimurenga, from the Shona word for ‘struggle’ — was born. And there were few bands more essential to the development of this music than the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band…’
Their biggest hits — along with several rare tracks — recorded between 1974 and 1979.

Chaabi — ‘of the people’ — has its roots in the Andalusian music of Moorish Spain, spreading to North Africa with exiled Jewish and Moorish communities; but it really took off in post-WWII Algiers…

Raw, bustling, parping afro-funk from northern Cameroon.
The complete works: three sevens.

‘As with many other ethnic groups of the area, a traditional singing pattern is used with each singer adapting words to context. Many of these songs express intimate, strong emotions that bring tears to the performers while they are singing. The cascading mournful feel of this music is beautifully transcendent. You’ve never heard anything like it.
‘Instruments used by the ensemble include the babi (single tree leaf ) and mepa (tree leaf rolled up into the shape of a horn or mirliton), a chiwo (three-stringed bowed instrument), a labi (six-holed bamboo flute), a lahe (three-stringed small lute) and a meba (vertical reed instrument).’

The Beaters changed their name in tribute to the Rhodesian township which hosted their Damascene cultural and political awakening. One year after the LP entitled Harari came out in 1975, they were back in the studio, deepening the African sensibilities of their music, but also trying out influences like jazz, fusion and prog, which would carry them forward.

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.

‘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.”

‘Sublime, ethereal minimalism: the first drawing together of Onogawa’s soundtrack compositions, plotting a decade of music for films by cult filmmaker Gakuryū Ishii.
‘Sequenced into an album by Onogawa himself, this retrospective spans a fertile period of collaboration with Ishii, through soundtracks for three remarkable films — August in the
Water (1995), Labyrinth of Dreams (1997), and Mirrored Mind (2005) — where the cinema is texturally and sensually imbued with the spiritual, ambient, dreamlike quality of Onogawa’s music.
‘The sound Onogawa conjures for these films is elegant and patient, often spare or essential in form, but saturated in a strange and otherworldly, poetic emotion and atmosphere. Boundaries are crossed between New Age and science fiction, passing through blissfulness, melancholy, and paranoia, towards enchantments of mood and colour.
‘It’s notable that the compositions on this album straddle the millennium, with a fitting mix of divine and uncertain themes. New listeners might hear links to Mark Snow’s work for the X-Files and Millennium, or the soundtracks of certain future-facing and future-fearing Japanese anime or cyberpunk.
‘Onogawa’s music adds great depth and tenor to the sensory experience of the films themselves, but it stands just as strongly as a listening experience on its own terms; a virtuosic example of Ambient that changes in hue when turned in the light. Remarkably, like Ishii’s films, Onogawa’s work has never been widely available outside of fervid underground fan posts, usually sourced from extremely limited and private CDs limited to Japan.
‘This retrospective seeks to remedy that, presenting Onogawa as one of the great composers of the last three decades.’

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.”