The Latin Jazz classic from 1969, huge on the Dingwalls scene back in the day for the sizzling dancer Tema De Alma Latina.

‘Wildly adventurous music from Cairo. Hypnotic polyrhythms pulsate within a richly acoustic sound-world. Custom-made, microtonal guitars explore nuanced phrasings, and Louca’s languid interplay with violin, synthesizer, and other instruments creates passages of vivid beauty.
‘Featuring violinist Ayman Asfour, percussionist and drummer Khaled Yassine, double bassist Rosa Brunello, multi-instrumentalist Nancy Mounir (playing violin and theremin on El Taalab), and oud virtuoso Hazem Shaheen on Sahar, Fera is some of the most composed and thoughtfully-crafted music Louca has ever made, but of course it’s guided by the dynamic experimentation and collaborative spark that have become central to his work.’

The ravanne is a large drum — a goatskin stretched over a wooden frame — played with the hands, emblematic of the Creole cultural heritage on this island in the Indian Ocean: the music here is fabulous.

A landmark field recording, exquisitely done, ambient and intimate, with beautiful music, and documentation by Colin Turnbull. A hit with Peter Brook, anyway.

It says ‘Volume 1’ on the cover, and this debut is full of promise, but it’s a one-off, from Nigeria, 1973: African styles grooving together with Latin and Caribbean, US soul and funk, and psych rock.

Chocolate Mena leading three lineups — featuring Joe Henderson, Jerome Richardson, Alfredo Armenteros, and co — through Lalo Schifrin and Duke Pearson arrangements of core Latin and Jazz classics.

Menwar is a political and cultural spokesperson for the Creole minority in Mauritius, refreshing traditional musical forms like sega to put his messages across. The sound is lightly rootsy, dominated by drums and voices.

Double-headed drums, horns and shells, guitars and violins, reed flutes and cascabeles whirled together in festive and ritualistic dance music, an amazing mixture of indian-Mexico and Spanish Middle Ages.

Rawly ethereal, other-worldly singing by members of hill tribes in China, Vietnam, and Laos.

His earliest recordings, for Emory Cook — unflinching social commentary, spun with invincible exuberance and literary panache.

Calling all Disco Freaks!

‘The great South African tenorist Mike Makhamalele was a graduate of the key early-seventies group The Drive (alongside Bheki Mseleku and Kaya Mahlangu); and a mainstay of the scene centred on the Pelican nightclub in Soweto. From 1975, he began to record under his own name, developing a sophisticated fusion sound in a musical lane which few of his contemporaries were travelling.
‘Always attuned to other global fashions in Black dance and pop music, under numerous studio aliases he cut 45rpm covers of Fela’s Shakara and the Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight; and in 1979 he entered the Gallo studios with producer Peter Ceronio to respond to the ascendant sound of disco. Named after a township dance craze, Kabuzela was the result: four extended tracks of bouncing, upful disco jazz. Perfectly calibrated for dancing, heavy on the bass and drums, the album is set off by a gleaming centre piece, Disco Freaks — a joyous paean to the weekend and true lost gem of global disco, perfect for the most discerning dancefloors.’