With Michael Smith on piano, Noel McGhie on drums, and Bob Reid on bass, in April 1974; originally released by Calumet Records.

Bringing together two generations of South African guitar mastery: Madala Kunene, ‘King of the Zulu Guitar’, now in his mid-seventies, and his protege Sibusile Xaba, whose playing interweaves multiple South African guitar lineages in an original, spiritualised fusion.
Recorded in Zululand in the town of Utrecht, at a cultural centre called Kwantu Village. “It’s such a broad word, but the elders teach us that Ntu is basically an energy, almost chi, an energy, a force that all living beings have within them. It’s a living energy, so kwaNTU is almost the place of this energy.”

‘A beautifully expansive collection of interweaving, finger-picked melody, husky vocalisations from elder Kunene and thrumming hand percussion’ (The Guardian).

‘Boomerangs back into the slashing chords and frenzied double-picking of the Harry Pussy years, tossing the gentler melodic glow of the last few solo records into the dustbin. In other words, this may be Orcutt’s most overtly punk-rockist record since Gerty Loves Pussy, his first solo electric LP from a decade ago. It’s an affirmation that Orcutt is above all a lead player—angular runs scaling the heavens, ricocheting back to ground zero before climbing again. Orcutt builds tension with short phrases, repeated with slight variability until it seems like they’ll never stop, finally slamming into a fresh line like the dawning valley at the crest of the mountain pass. Another Perfect Day is, ultimately, something of a solo guitar Nouveau Roman, an exhilarating run through melodic reiteration, impossible crescendos (check out those ecstatic crowd hoots on For the Drainers) breaking into—a moment rarely found on an Orcutt record—soft, whisper-quiet tracer notes at the end of A Natural Death. Another Perfect Day returns Orcutt to the immediacy of his earliest records while maintaining the melodic complexity, phrasing, and flow of a player, who’s been going, what—four-plus decades now? And when he taps his roots, it’s a reminder of exactly what was so exciting about Orcutt’s playing in the first place.’

On harp and piano — with Pharoah Sanders (soprano sax), Vishnu Wood (oud), Rashied Ali (drums), Cecil McBee (bass), Charlie Haden (bass), Majid Shabazz (bells, tambourine), Tulsi (tamboura).
Transcendent jazz from 1970; full fathom five deep but compellingly accessible. Our favourite of all her records, and over the decades our first recommendation as an introduction to her work.
According to AC’s sleeve note, ‘Anyone listening to this selection should try to envision himself floating on an ocean of Satchinandaji’s love, which is literally carrying countless devotees across the vicissitudes and stormy blasts of life to the other shore.’

This is fire. Ring the alarm.
The opener is MM’s first recording, aged seventeen; a 45 on Amha Records. The remainder revives his 1976 LP for Kaifa, produced by Ali Abdella Kaifa aka Ali Tango, and featuring such mainstays of the scene as trumpeter Shimèlis Bèyènè, Dawit Yifru on keys, and the great Tilayé Gèbrè on saxophone and flute. In the teeth of the burgeoning Red Terror of the Derg junta, this LP was the swansong of Swinging Addis, and arguably its absolute masterpiece.
Intense, roiling Ethiopian afrobeat. Utterly killer; hotly recommended.