The title track is a pinnacle of funky soul jazz. No-nonsense chitlin manners, hard and tight, with none of the airs and graces of fusion. Sonny Phillips on electric piano, Ron Carter on bass. Jones nails it evilously. Ace drumming by Bud Kelly.

King Tubby meets the Roots Radics.

The second volume in Abdou’s unmissable Nuits trio of LPs, this time featuring his Casablanca home-girl, sahrawi diva Naima Samih.

Giddy psych, funk, jazz and electronica freak-outs from Casablanca. A combination of original compositions and folk tunes, crazily blending together Abdou’s wigging organ, rough beat boxes, wayward kit-drumming and crisp north African percussion, a little Hank Marvin and some sporting sing-a-long, and plenty of unfit-to-drive reverb and tape delay. A facsimile reissue of this collectors’ item, first out in 1976. Ace.

COH as in Jean Cohen (saxophones), EL as in Dominique Elbaz (piano) and MEC as in the brothers François and Jean-Louis Méchali (bass and drums) — joined by the American clarinettist and flautist Evan Chandlee for this debut album, originally released by Saravah in 1969.
“We wanted to avoid that kind of ‘free’ which is characterized by pounding drumming and a saxophonist freaking out in the high register, that type of music that kicks off suddenly then stops without us being able to sense the motivation. There is never any difference in intensity: nothing is destroyed, nothing is created, nothing is elaborated, nothing is questioned — when, even on the simple level of sound, there is so much that can be done.”
With French roots running back through the music of Jef Gilson, and pitched at the time somewhere between ESP and Actuel/BYG, with full-blooded nods to the likes of Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane and Walt Dickerson, this is expert, exuberant music-making, searching out its own way.
Ten tracks, even-handedly improvised and composed, beautifully played; intense and free-spirited but always engaging, attentive and communicative. 
Top-notch sound; heavyweight gatefold sleeve with obi-strip; twelve-page booklet.

Their second LP, from 1971, with guitarist Joseph Dejean from the Full Moon Ensemble propelling the music forwards, as pianist Dominique Elbaz stands down.
The sound swells and contracts dramatically across the eleven tracks and interludes, with fresh senses of break-down and silence, and new intimacy. There is some Steve Lacy to its fierce repetition of key phrases; some Sharrock to Dejean; sparing experimentation with effects; portions of central African polyphony (Boa Constrictor), summer-breeze funk (Desert Angel), and plenty of characteristically rootsy prog and cosmic skronk.

Eleven exuberantly swinging, startlingly fresh jazz ragas by an ensemble combining hard-core Bombay jazz messengers, Bollywood royalty, and sitar master Ustad Rais Khan.
This is indo-jazz fusion direct from the source: an extremely rare glimpse of the same Bombay jazz scene that gave us Amancio D’Silva. Nothing kitsch here: by turns rollicking and lyrical, this is edgily committed and heartfelt music-making.
Never reissued since its 1968 release by EMI India, Raga Jazz Style is a collectors’ holy grail of Indian jazz; and this is a highly impressive inaugural salvo by Outernational Sounds, using original masters and beautifully rendered facsimile artwork, with 180g vinyl pressed at Pallas, in Germany.
Very warmly recommended.

Sweet soul from Baltimore, produced by none other than George Kerr and Bunny Sigler.
The opener Count To Ten was their big hit, grabbing a couple of bars of Smokey Robinson; Candy is treasurably cannibalistic (‘her heart’s made of caramel’ etc); that’s a secret-weapon version of War (What Is It Good For?).

Representing three years of recording after-hours at the New York radio station where he worked, this is TD’s stunning debut, originally self-released in 1961, and later issued by Folkways.
‘Oscillators pulse and clash with fragments of incidental tape music, leaving collages of sound as tuneful and memorable as they are otherworldly. A visionary debut that presages the abstract ambience of modern IDM and an essential addition to any collection of early electronic music.’

Contemporary psych legends Acid Mothers Temple and Reynolds collaborating in the studio in 2017. Improvisatory, shamanic, ecstatic, nuts.

Drawn from his six monumental singles for the Philips, Amha and Yared labels between 1970-73, revolutionising traditional Eritrean music via the innovations of amplified kirar, electric guitar and horns. Thick, deep declarations and considerations of love over a mixture of sombre and joyous tunes (with the hand-clapped beat often shifting into double-time near the end).
Co-released with Mitmitta Musika in Addis Ababa; handsomely presented in a tip-on sleeve, with extensive liner notes, translations and exclusive photos.
Fab.