Winston’s daughter, on a vintage Channel One rhythm; produced last year by Franklin ‘Steamers A Bubble’ Irving. Straight to the head of all nationalists and xenophobes.

The recording debut of Baptista from Nagoya in Japan — ‘impulsive and driving but earthy and dark, buzzing with dense energy like a jungle yet spacious like the hall of a mountain king’ — topped off with a remix by Hodge.

Duets by Anouar Brahem’s accordionist and the classically-trained guitarist Seddiki, ranging from Greensleeves through Faure to their own improvisations and compositions.

Brilliant, game-changing re-deployments of the lap-slide Hawaiian steel guitar — in this case a Gibson Super 400, modified with a drone string and a high nut to raise the strings off the fretboard like a lap steel — away from Indian popular music, into the service of ragas.

‘Over 200 full-colour pages documenting Dodd’s vinyl output during the first six years of Jamaica’s new urban music — from Boogie Shuffle to Ska. Presented imprint by imprint and illustrated with over 900 label scans. With sections on Dodd’s Sound Systems and businesses as well as the musicians he used and the live scene in Jamaica.’

Leroy Brown’s killer detournement of Bobby Bland’s classic Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, plus Clint Eastwood’s storming deejay excursion.
It’s a shame there’s no room for the stunning dub on the original Stagesound release of the Clint, but you can’t have everything.
It’s a must.

‘Bubbling tones, processed field recordings, and shifting electronic layers evoke the rhythms of atoms, molecules, and micro-organisms.
‘While grounded in experimental technique, The Vertical Luminous avoids the academic or austere, instead embracing a mischievous sense of melody and curiosity - a reminder that exploration and joy can coexist in sound.
‘A record that is both meditative and playful, equally suited to deep listening or casual drift.’

Calling all HJ massive: here is a terrific, vivifying guide to your record collection, and a political kick up the bum. Within ten minutes of engaging with this book, you’ll sprout a fresh pair of ears and a fifth lobe, or your money back.
This is a riveting, bracingly militant account of the racist British policing of Black Atlantic musical culture, from slavery days bang up to date. Extended sections consider the suppression of African drumming and dancing; calypso, and reggae sound systems; rap and drill.
The writing is deep, wide-ranging and richly erudite, but accessible and unstuffy. Compellingly, Lambros takes it all personally, and crucially his book blazes with love for a bunch of our favourite music: a long, diverse playlist in the back ricochets from Count Ossie and Salah Ragab through to A Tribe Called Quest and 24-Carat Black.
It joyously celebrates Black music as a reparative safe space, but also a key to getting to grips with the world; a contagion of ‘creole planetarity’, in the words of Paul Gilroy’s foreword, ‘capable of facilitating and intensifying political mobilisation, collective refusal and acting in concert. It can do this because it has promoted and amplified meaningful, relational life amidst a general haemorrhaging of meaning…’
‘The healing force of the universe,’ in Albert Ayler’s phrase. ‘My sanctuary… my life,’ as Gary Bartz put it. ‘Songs in the key of life.’

Very warmly recommended.