E-flat, b-flat and bass clarinets, soprano and alto saxophones, birdcalls, viola, banjo, cymbals, wood, trees, sand, land, water, air.
Recorded outdoors in 1977, in the Black Forest, near Aufen.

‘Hair-raisingly good… incandescent’ (The Observer).

Griot music with delicate dambararou lute; ritual possession songs with gogue fiddle and gon and karou drums; and a women’s choir.

The fourth Snakeoil; the second (following on from 2015’s You’ve Been Watching Me) to feature a quintet line-up adding guitarist Ryan Ferreira to the core lineup of clarinettist Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith.
Reviews seem unanimous that it’s the best yet.
‘Characteristically action-packed in the Berne tradition (following on from AACM and his muse Julius Hemphill): powerful, dynamic, often fast-moving — yet also very clear in all its teeming detail. “We somehow achieved more sonic space by adding another player,” says Berne. It’s an impression maintained even when producer David Torn takes up his own guitar in a cameo at the climax of the modestly-titled Sideshow (in reality a 26-minute epic journey), soloing amid thunderous timpani, over a serpentine melody outlined by sax and clarinet.’

Terrific roots plodder from 1982, with Bertram Brown and King Tubby at the controls.

Entirely exclusive music, unique to this release, with a radiant silk-screened sleeve: four from The Marble Downs sessions with Will Oldham, a Scott Walker to start; and a side of unaccompanied folk singing.

With an Actress.

Moody, heavy lovers, detourned by FW’s full-throated falsetto. Ace.

Irresistible kora-led Manding melodies, surging and hypnotic; original songs rooted in the musical traditions of Senegal and Mali.

Bele is an African folk drumming and singing tradition running back to slavery days. Mondesir leads five singers, with two percussionists, on tambour and tibwa.

Crucial Arthur — with a deadly Walter Gibbons mix.