Total murder.
Bernard Brown, Carlton Gregory, and Noel ‘Bunny’ Brown (from the Chosen Few), originally on the April imprint out of NYC in 1978.
Steppers paranoia par excellence.

‘This work has accompanied me like a secret, an almost silent meditation on what the viola means in my life. Through it I have experienced how much this instrument connects me to listening, to patience, to inwardness. Here Morton Feldman is not composing in order to shine, but so as to make us hear the infinitesimal, the unspeakable – that is what has touched me profoundly, and I want to share it with the listeners.’
Antoine Tamestit

Last of PU’s cheeky threesome of early-seventies soundtracks for the noirish erotica of Luigi Scattini, with lots of electric piano, wah wah and vocalese, drama, melancholia and sleaze, shot through with spaced-out jazz, true Umiliani style.

The ‘un-muting’ or ‘sonic restitution’ of African instruments held in Western museum collections, this project began with a recording session in October 2023 at the British Museum in London, when Hoyt was granted access to instruments from the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. These recordings were then developed in his studio, blending in African and Western instruments from his own collection.

‘This record is not an album but a diagram, a blackground score for a people who have never stopped dancing. Instruments exiled into the vitrines of empire, their voices stilled by taxonomic theft, now murmur and hum again. This is restitution by vibration, and the sounds you hear refuse to be forgotten, to be fixed, to refuse to die. You won’t find Western time signatures here; you’ll find time folding, spilling, catching fire. His compositions bespeak an afro-sonic-philo-sophy, more drastic than gnostic. These desperate times call for desperate pleasures.’

From 1971, A Guitar in the Foreground is Rosinha’s best record. Classic, chilled Bossa shot through with her scintillating guitar-playing.
Check this version of Summertime for her instrumental virtuosity. (Tyler, the Creator burglarised it for Tomorrow, on Chromakopia.)

AA is the close collaborator of Ennio Morricone. He’s worked with Bruno Nicolai, Nino Rota, Franco Micalizzi, Francesco De Masi… He says he wrote the Muppet Song (and that Piero Umiliani nicked his royalties). He whistled for Fellini.
Originally released by Octopus in 1975, Angoscia catches him at his creative peak.
Twelve enactments of mental distress. Anguish, dismay, desperation, uncertainty, pride, resignation, frustration, desolation, agony, prostration, obsession and — finally — fear.
Arnold Schoenberg’s in the house.
A barrel of laughs, then; warmly recommended.

A mix of overlooked gems and local boomshots from the cassette tape scene in Libya, during the late 80s to early 2000, when independent artists relied on makeshift home studios or travelled abroad to record in Tunisia and Egypt. A judicious mash-up of boundary-pushing sounds which reflects this precariousness and nascency; also the political and cultural crossroads at which Libya found itself. North African rhythms meet Arab melodies and deep African roots. Disco and house run into gritty pop. Reggae courses through, with an unmistakable Libyan twist — not just musically, in the slowed-down cadence of traditional shaabi beats, but also culturally, taking to heart its outernational message of proud, defiant self-awareness.

Assembled by Habibi Funk with personality and love, as per; with a 32-page booklet. Another winner.

Last few box sets!

The long awaited follow-up to the superb compilation Loving On The Flipside, from ten years ago.
‘Contained within this anthology are some of the greatest soul ballads that go sweet with a beat. Most of these songs have never been compiled. Some have never been issued in any form. Some, like the Ledgends entry here, have been sampled to great success (in that case for Freddie Gibbs and Madlib’s Deeper). Some haven’t been sampled, but, like Herb Johnson’s entry, are patiently awaiting their day.’

Grooving, spaced-out, late-seventies jazz-funk, which first surfaced in 2006 on the Inedit 79 compilation. Same super-classy spaceway as Fantasy by Earth Wind & Fire. That Raekwon knows a tune when he hears one.

Soulful, rootical early set from the great man, with rich, brilliant backing from percussionists Trio Mocoto.