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.

Four members of Sonny Okosun’s band, edging things on in 1974: deep, spacey afro-funk.

‘SK Kakraba is a master of the gyil xylophone — fourteen wooden slats strung across calabash resonators. The silk walls of spiders’ egg sacs — ‘paapieye’ in the Lobi language — are stretched across holes in the gourds, giving each note a buzzy rattle. SK learned as a child from elders in his Lobi community in the far northwest reaches of Ghana.’
Beautiful, spare, mesmeric recordings — song cycles, dirges, improvisations based on traditional songs, original compositions — newly made.

Superb, timber-shivering example of the city’s more elevated style of fado. Highly recommended.

Thirty-five stingers from an HMV run of more than four hundred 78s, recordings made in Uganda and Kenya from the mid-1930s till the mid-1950s.