A judicious compilation of cornerstone, pioneering UK Lovers: One Blood, Simplicity, Karen Dixon…

Forty-eight Alvin Ranglin productions… The Ethiopians, Cynthia Richards, Charlie Ace, The Slickers, The Maytones…

Stunning, high-octane, steppers do-over of Yabby You’s Jesus Dread.

Angry, tear-up digi, both sides.
Two scorchers from 1989; blazing out of Annotto Bay, on the northeastern coast of JA.

A stupendous haul of sound-system specials and inspired experiments conjured from some of the greatest reggae rhythms of all time, from the inner sanctum of King Tubby’s studio in the mid-seventies (where Philip Smart was second engineer).
Seething with lethal touches of Tubby; dotted with head-spinning walk-ons for Hugh Mundell, Johnny Clarke, Jacob Miller and co; steeped in the genius of young Augustus Pablo, Smart’s childhood friend.
A staggering turn-up. Utterly crucial.

An insurgent blend of rock, rumba, soul and traditional grooves.
Including never-before-released recordings by legends like Thomas Mapfumo and Oliver
Mtukudzi, amongst many others.

Electric guitar, pipe organ, and drums; a mix of new compositions and interpretations of traditional folk songs.

‘A spellbinding affair that roars with innovation’ (All About Jazz).
‘A startling, contemplative, and utterly brave recording’ (All Music).
‘Simple, sublime melodies… ****1/2’ (Downbeat).

Stanley Bryan was a jack of all trades at Channel One in its heyday. As an engineer, he mixed the Eek-a-Mouse classic Wah Do Dem, for instance. If a drummer dropped out of a session, Stan was the man to step in. And into the night, Ranking Barnabas worked the mic for the Channel One Sound System, often toasting over rhythms that he had recorded himself in the studio. Though Barnabas mixed countless dubs during these years, The Cold Crusher is the only LP released solely under his name, as a limited edition in the US.
Very well presented by the Italian label Jamming, with new notes, and expert sound restoration at Dubplates & Mastering. The terrific cover photo is by Beth Lesser.
Dub fans, don’t dilly dally. This won’t stick around.

‘After keyboardist/composer Bayeté aka Todd Cochran established his musical presence on the San Francisco scene playing in Bobby Hutcherson’s band, and before becoming a key member of the innovative band Automatic Man, which he co-founded with Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, he recorded a couple of solo albums for the Prestige label that feature some of the most far-out, futuristic music the legendary jazz imprint ever released… Early ‘70s electric Miles is a clear point on the compass, but so are Parliament-Funkadelic and Lonnie Liston Smith, if he were playing a fuzzed-out clavinet instead of a Fender Rhodes.’

“While I’ve held space for the blues aesthetic and jazz in everything I’ve done, I was leaving one world and entering another, unmooring the ship and heading into a sea of unknowns, so to speak.”

‘Music that feels both intimate and expansive: songs drift like disrupted signals, carried by harmony, tape hiss, and a strong sense of touch.’

‘Dissonant, ghostly, and otherworldly, summoning complex emotions with sparse tools…
‘The songs are nested in tape hiss and arranged with vocal harmonies she layers like falling snowflakes and drones that fill up the crevices of your lungs. It has the tactile intimacy of 1970s folk musicians like Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton, music that feels tied to the natural world it dreams of…
‘This out-of-time music comes to us when the natural world is deteriorating and the ever-present internet is a tool of mass surveillance and a lens to witness multiple global atrocities at once. In her endeavor to exalt such a bleak world, Zuniga seems to be battling herself. She acknowledges that “memory always sees the loved one smaller” and then also shares “why I remember,” citing “white ripe strawberry bruise / beats in the heart” as her reason. She lays bare her pain but ends the record with a wordless composition of stormy static and crystalline piano notes titled To Live Happily. Zuniga allows these disparate perspectives to coexist without overexplaining. A star can be shining now and gone tomorrow, a memory beautiful and still insufficient. Her comfort with dissonance creates a sense of expansiveness and richness to songs that often only feature a handful of instruments at a time’ (Pitchfork).

Very warmly recommended if psych-folk and ting like Joanne Robertson are your poison.