Like a dream, but authoritatively, this remix from Jamaica magnificently crosses the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti with the grounation reggae tradition of Count Ossie.

Rough, tough, searing steppers from the Meditation, with a killer-diller Dillinger, produced by Isha Morrison — Mrs Lee Perry — and originally out on Orchid.

The Nigerian percussionist together with US soul singer OC Tolbert, in 1982.
A grippingly odd couple of sides: Happiness is slow-burning gospel; Nwanne is terrific, stampeding Afro-disco, with popping bass, echoing shout-outs and drums on fire.

Magnificent, hypnotically insurgent, boogie-down bubblers, with Sugar Minott at the mic, leading burnished horns and dapper, soulful backing vocals. Like a cross between Ain’t No Stopping Us Now and Armagideon.
Jerry Johnson heads out on the flip: a killer uptempo instrumental, with swirling brass over a pared-down, propulsive rhythm.

What a record. The studio debut of the mighty Daddy U-Roy in 1969, sparring with Val Bennett over Old Fashioned Way, both of them wigging out like a couple of beboppers, with the ghost of John Holt on the backing tape. “The studio is kinda cloudy,” reports U-Roy — and everyone sounds lit but utterly inspired. Pure vibes.
“My first tune I ever do was Dynamic Fashion Way with Keith Hudson, and then I do Earth’s Rightful Ruler for Scratch. Those tunes didn’t get very far, them sell a couple hundred.”
Cornerstone stuff. Show some respect and chuck your bootleg.

Fragile, dignified performances by two of Cajun music’s finest and most unusual artists, originally released on 78 in the late 1920s. French vocals accompanied by guitar or fiddle, or sometimes both. Impeccable ballads and breakdowns. Old school tip-on cover.

‘Sublime, ethereal minimalism: the first drawing together of Onogawa’s soundtrack compositions, plotting a decade of music for films by cult filmmaker Gakuryū Ishii.
‘Sequenced into an album by Onogawa himself, this retrospective spans a fertile period of collaboration with Ishii, through soundtracks for three remarkable films — August in the
Water (1995), Labyrinth of Dreams (1997), and Mirrored Mind (2005) — where the cinema is texturally and sensually imbued with the spiritual, ambient, dreamlike quality of Onogawa’s music.
‘The sound Onogawa conjures for these films is elegant and patient, often spare or essential in form, but saturated in a strange and otherworldly, poetic emotion and atmosphere. Boundaries are crossed between New Age and science fiction, passing through blissfulness, melancholy, and paranoia, towards enchantments of mood and colour.
‘It’s notable that the compositions on this album straddle the millennium, with a fitting mix of divine and uncertain themes. New listeners might hear links to Mark Snow’s work for the X-Files and Millennium, or the soundtracks of certain future-facing and future-fearing Japanese anime or cyberpunk.
‘Onogawa’s music adds great depth and tenor to the sensory experience of the films themselves, but it stands just as strongly as a listening experience on its own terms; a virtuosic example of Ambient that changes in hue when turned in the light. Remarkably, like Ishii’s films, Onogawa’s work has never been widely available outside of fervid underground fan posts, usually sourced from extremely limited and private CDs limited to Japan.
‘This retrospective seeks to remedy that, presenting Onogawa as one of the great composers of the last three decades.’

A kind of greatest hits of the one-man-band, albeit all rare now, or previously unreleased.
An early version of Abner’s signature song I’m So Depressed, on LP for the first time, is followed by four unreleased recordings, on electric banjo, drums played by his feet, and harmonica.
The second side features Abner’s charged, mournful last recordings, not for the faint of heart, made two months before his death. These were released by Mississippi as a ten-inch EP back in 2011, entitled Last Ole Minstrel Man.

From 1983, the same year as Jamming In The Street, his unmissable collaboration with Sugar Minott. Kicks off with a Queen Of The Minstrel excursion. Drifter is here, Late Night Blues, No More Will I Roam, Yo Yo, Real Rock. Sly & Robbie with the Aggrovators; Bunny Lee at the controls. Full-strength, body-rocking, early-eighties deejaying. It’s obvious why sounds like Black Scorpio and Kilimanjaro favoured him.

‘A deeply emotional, hypnotic fusion of gospel, psychedelic groove, folk, soulful funk, and
Afro-Latin rhythms. Recorded in Pointe-Noire, and originally released in the Republic of Congo in 1982, the album channels the raw spirit of 1980s Congo with vibrant multilingual vocals and rich, polyrhythmic textures.’
Fully remastered from the original tapes.