Thrilling rarities from Stax and Goldwax — funky scorchers like The Hawg; hard takes on Ticket To Ride and Tramp; Isaac Hayes’ debut 45; Willie Cobbs’ You Don’t Love Me (which Dawn Penn did over as No, No, No).
All their fab late 60s recordings for Bert Berns and his Bang and Shout labels, and then RCA — classic girl group and soul both, with some dancers and northern anthems, lit upfront by the great belter Brenda Reid.
One of the great soul singers, with classy recordings made between better-known stints for Colpix and Shout, making the very most of sometimes poppy material.
Sparky, attitudinous girl garage from Europe and the US.
The house drummer of the Flamingo jazz club throughout the fifties, presenting a 1961 date featuring Tubbs and Jimmy Deuchar. Vibes-player Bill Le Sage leads the gorgeous ballad World Of Blue.
With the violinist Dominique Pifarély and cellist Vincent Courtois.
For the first time on an ECM disc, the French clarinettist explores — in characteristically individual fashion — the classic jazz format of reeds, piano, bass and drums.
Sinewy, expressive engagements with the street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, from Ramallah to Rome, in search of ‘a dynamic, a movement that will give birth to a rhythm, an emotion, a song.’
His own selection from two ECMs and an Emarcy — subverting the big-band tropes second-nature to a large improvising ensemble. ‘Inspired by Gil Evans, Claus Ogerman and Oum Khalsoum.’
Blazing start and great delivery, but rather treading water over killer late-80s digi.
Same vintage as his massive Dangerous hit for Redman. Not to mention the more voluble Don’t Touch The Crack by Dignitary Stylish.
Zinging with raw dubplate-style presence, like the other two 45s on this rhythm.
‘The Dark Of The Psychic Unknown’.
‘Psychological Drama’.
Pure worries from Leipzig — three club burners steeped in Detroit traditions, distilling the explorations in collective, nervy hypnosis of KM live sets. As the music slowly unfurls, there he is at every turn, subtly tweaking its parameters, redistributing its weight, pricking its grooves into a state of utterly infectious perpetual movement.
The two visions of Chilazon track opposite pathways: the first is twelve minutes of gorgeous, dubwise, aquatic techno, spattered with kicks and razor-sharp hi-hats, and smeared with ghostly echoes; then a terse mesh of broken drums, escalating to a quiet yet feverishly intense peak. Lanthanum is calligraphic swordplay, its toms and bass stabs warily circling one another in a graceful steppers’ dance, spaced-out and fathoms-deep.