Scintillating fusion from 1976, produced by Airto Moreira, with arrangements by George Duke, featuring dazzling turns by the likes of Hermeto Pascoal, Raul de Souza, Egberto Gismonti, and Robertinho Silva. Wonderful stuff.

All-time-classic Stalag excursion.

Heavy Al Campbell productions given the golden touch by three master engineers — Channel One dons Stanley ‘Barnabas’ Bryan and Lancelot ‘Maxie’ Mackenzie, and the one and only Hopeton Brown.
It was Al Campbell who produced Linval Thompson’s classic sides. Barnabus started up with Channel One when he was still at school; he was deejay for the sound; he learned mixing from Tubby; Sly taught him drums. Maxie was the technical whiz who built Channel One’s studio and sound-system amplifiers.
Originally out on Silver Kamel in 1981.

‘Deep and haunting; a dense tapestry of layered percussion, time-warped tape loops, and spiralling drumgita figures, all underpinned by hypnotic improvisations from Brazilian pianist Rafael Dos Santos. Privately pressed in 1982, it is both ecstatic and unsettling, a landmark recording in black British experimental music.’

A reissue of Vambe’s privately pressed album from 1982.

‘Occasionally, you find music outside the commercial mainstream, outside of everything – the music of visionaries, eccentrics, inventors, loners. Moondog, Daphne Oram, Harry Partch are from this mould. And so too is Lori Vambe.
‘A self-taught drummer, inventor, and sonic experimentalist, who moved from Harare to London in 1959, Vambe is a unique figure in British music. The creator of his own instrument, the drumgita (pronounced ‘drum-guitar’) or string-drum, Vambe intended to create a kind of music that had never been made in order to pursue access to the fourth dimension. The album plays with time, mixing hypnotic, trance-like drumgita pieces with the same segments played backwards. You can hear echoes of African drumming traditions, minimalist repetition, and tape-manipulated musique concrète— but ultimately, the album defies genre. It is a solitary voyage, spiritual and futuristic.’