‘Their entire output in upgraded sound from the correct master sources, including recently discovered tapes and unissued demos, with a booklet jammed with illustrations from the group’s personal archives and a 9,000-word essay based on input from all the members, including commentary from Sly himself. Truly the last word on Sly Stone’s first phase.’

Utterly transfixing and thrilling, this is blues to the limit, a kind of avant-garde primitivism.
‘With an approach that was drawn from the Mississippi modal tradition, where you change chords only when the spirit moves you, variety was never the aim. Intensity was.’
For lyrics, too, Hooker is in the moment, with roughly amplified reflections about despair, sex and booze, rent and dancing; the places and faces of Detroit. The singing is frank and emotional but sly. He never lets up stomping on a wooden pallet, quarter notes with one foot, eighth notes the other.
Returning to the tapes, Ace has got this unmissable music sounding better than ever. Nineteen previously-unavailable alternative takes never drag, but deepen its mesmeric spell.
Truly crucial stuff.

Scott Walker’s interpretations of the nine Jacques Brel songs from his Scott, Scott 2 and Scott 3 albums, followed by Brel’s original French-language recordings.

An anti-war garage-punk onslaught from 1966, doing Bo Diddley proud.
Backed here by The Leaves (plus drummer Don Conka from Love), BJ knocked around with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Frank Zappa.
Anyway… they brought it to Jerome.