Thirty-four sides originally released by Jesse Jones’ twin labels out of Atlanta, between 1968-1977. Southern to Northern, classic R&B to modern soul, dancers to romancers.

‘A wicked sense of pacing, of beauty and absurdity, and an instinctive ear for musical action’ (The New York Times). ‘There’s no theme or continuity… unless you count sheer awesomeness’ (Fader).

Marvellous Boy is the West African counterpart of the 1950s Soho scene of our series London Is The Place For Me. Calypso, highlife and jazz, brimming over with lust for life, topicality, and extravagant creativity.

Positioning him between Milford Graves and Morton Feldman, the New York Times reckons this is ‘Mr. Sorey’s best album… bereft of almost anything resembling a steady cadence. Instead, what’s inside the pulse — resonance, fluid, potential — comes to the fore. It’s not rare for recordings of improvised music to give a sense of the physical space between instrumentalists, but with Mr. Sorey’s trio, that air seems to be in a state of charged collapse, packed with magnetic density.’

Tear-up bad-boy brass-band scorchers. Just like dad crossed Sun Ra with Kool And The Gang, this crashes funkdafied New Orleans street jazz into hip hop. With Flea, Damon, Tony Allen, Malcolm from The Heliocentrics.

Fired-up, originary African pop, conjuring the Congolese rumba from imported Latin 78s — with thumb pianos, kazoos, banjos, bottles, violins, and irresistible little songs about pimps, dope, clubbing, sex, death.

‘superlative’, Mojo; ‘sensational’, The Observer; ‘hugely evocative and poignant’, Daily Telegraph; ‘*****’ The Times, Metro; ‘sheer joy from start to finish’, Sunday Telegraph.

Exhilarating reggae music from Stoke Newington, north east London, made by soundboys on a Casio and a drum machine, in a room over Eddie Regal’s record shop.

Dazzling melds of classic Detroit, grime, dubstep, speed garage, Paisley rock, synth-wave and the rest, with none other than the man not-himself crowned king.

‘2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv recorded live at a bar in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depth-full & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The ETA is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles. It belongs in the lineage of such canonical live double albums recorded on the West Coast as Lee Morgan’s Live at the Lighthouse, Miles Davis’ Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk & Black Beauty, & John Coltrane’s Live in Seattle.
‘While the IVtet sometimes plays standards &, including on this recording, original compositions, it is as previously stated largely a free improv group — just not in the genre meaning of the term. The music is more free composition than free improvisation, more blending than discordant. It’s tensile, yet spacious & relaxed. Clearly all four musicians have spent significant time in the planetary system known as jazz, but relationships to other musics, across many scenes & eras — dub & Dilla, primary source psychedelia, ambient & drone — suffuse the proceedings.’

Medicine Show No. 7.

‘an exquisitely poignant, evocative record’, Daily Telegraph; ‘wonderful… album of the year’, Sunday Times; ‘simply a classic album. Music by the people, for the people,’ The Voice.

The second half of the CD.

The original album cut AAA (fully analogue) from original master tape; and a bonus LP including previously unreleased alternate versions and outtakes from the recording sessions.