‘The basic theme of the record can be summed up with one extremely powerful Bahasa Indonesian word, Tanah, which translates as ‘soil-ground-land-earth’. Shabara’s vocals are an expressive force, conjuring spirits from the soil with a deep, cosmic humility and respect for the land.
‘Suryadi has built a new guitar for these tracks and pushes the Senyawa sound into new territory, utilizing delay, loops, and other effects to constitute groundings of folk, metal, punk and drone, for Shabara to explore with his whispered poetry and jagged, sharp-as-a-kris animistic powers. There is simply no other sound like it.’

Seven songs by Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi, rootsily mystical and vividly al fresco, spiralling from peripheral sites beside rubbish dumps and rice fields, into a busy market at the heart of Yogyakarta, from dawn till dusk.

A suitably outrageous picture disc.

Sixteen albums, 1958-1987; singles; duets; radio and soundtrack recordings.
271 tracks; 48-page booklet, with numerous photos.

Funkdafied, discofried, cosmic soca-boogie from 1984.  Let’s Get It Together is a monster.

The magic moments of Sharam Shabpareh, front-man of Iranian garage legends The Rebels. ‘Blurting horns, evil bass grooves, cheesy organs, a thick strata of percussion going off like microwave popcorn.’

An astounding compilation of the breakneck Shangaan dance output of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009.

His fine guitar-picking and upbeat, carefree songs brought George Sibanda from Bulawayo the fame throughout southern Africa — and he was versioned in the US — which drove him to drink and an early grave.

Kora and cello interplay.