Poor Isa — Ruben Machtelinckx and Frederik Leroux — playing woodblocks and prepared banjos; joined by Evan Parker, and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach.
Wonderful, moody, questing music, beautifully presented, in thick grey cardboard sleeves with foil stamping. Individually hand-numbered, in a first edition of just 150.
These are the last copies.
Strongly recommended.

Kind of a dry run for Blue Trane, a couple of months later: with JC, Byrd, Curtis Fuller, Paul Chambers, Art Taylor; a latinized Speak Low, and SC’s own, wicked News For Lulu.
‘Classic Vinyl.’

Her 1969 masterpiece, resting the psych-rock of Rotary Connection in favour of Ramsey Lewis’ set-up with Maurice White and Phil Upchurch, in pursuit of the Dionne Warwick / Bacharach & David sound. Of course the kicker is Charles Stepney’s production, peaking in the divine opener, Les Fleurs.

Scintillating, alchemical kosmische; visionary, deep, and luminous; and beautifully sleeved, with gold foiling and silver ink.

Works In Metal fans out a set of acid treatments and finely sharpened blades — cutting, shaping, suspending form. Sounds are melted down and forged as if liquid metal.
The works are paired. Arc’s Blue Flame previews the smoking volatility at the album’s core. Echoes and resonance soften the dissonant, bright textures; all overlaid with Fofana’s signature, percussive kick drums. Welding drills into the discordant thrills and spills of metamorphosis. Sparks fly and the bittersweet arc of change unfolds.
Fofana discreetly folds in text, poetry, and field recordings, spooring their decomposition and recomposition with a prismatic point of view. The coupling Obscure Light (Decomposition) and Obscure Light (Recomposition) marks something new in his music. The pulse is brightly honed, cascading beyond the dancefloor, exultingly eluding musical genre.
Works in Metal is perhaps Fofana’s most narrative album. At its heart is the killer, extended Lure of the Fragment / So Another Sound Suggests Itself. Melodies circle in call-and-response patterns, balancing proximity and distance, signalling the inward gravity required to work with metal. A nested story-line, with birds flying in; an album within an album. Dredging up memories and associations, Fofana filters in selections from his sound-archives. Layered with synths, field recordings become instruments in their own right. The last three minutes proffer precious clarity — a memory, in miniature, flashed onto molten metal.

In 1943 Suzanne Césaire declared that ‘our surrealism will then supply them the leaven from their very depths. It will be time finally to transcend the sordid contemporary antinomies: Whites-Blacks, Europeans-Africans, civilized-savage: the powerful magic of the mahoulis will be recovered, drawn from the very wellsprings of life. Colonial idiocies will be purified by the welding arc’s blue flame. The mettle of our metal, our cutting edge of steel, our unique communions — all will be recovered’. Works in Metal is a tribute to her prophecy; its enactment, sculpted in sound.

Blending fast, percussive cumbia rhythms with surf-style electric guitars, these are Los Zheros’ best recordings, brought together for the first time. Their highly-sought-after hit Cuarto Oscuro is here — Amazonian-Peruvian cumbia dosed with garage and psych. The insert contains never-before-seen photos of the band, besides expert notes.

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

Stone classic Detroit techno.