Truly pioneering electro-funk — treated, lo-fi, minimal, fundamentally desolate — this long overdue compilation of Sly’s own Stone Flower label runs the five 45s alongside ten previously unissued cuts, all newly remastered from the original tapes. The missing link between the rocky, soulful Stand! and the dark, ticking, overdubbed sound of There’s A Riot Going On, his masterpiece. The notes include an exclusive new interview with the great man himself.

Cosmic jazz excursions on saxophone, flute, electric keys, synths and drums.
Supple, deep and spacious; sparklingly dubwise; intensely percussive.

‘One thing is certain about a Sun Ra performance: You never know what to expect. Last week at the Chicago Jazz Festival, he presented a huge troupe of musicians, dancers and acrobats in a veritable circus of improvisation’ (John Litweiler, Chicago Tribune, September 9, 1988).
The entire show as originally broadcast by National Public Radio in the same year.

Nineteen, hip-hoppin, be-boppin capsules of funk, conjured and distilled from a year’s worth of weekly shows by the drummer, in a reclaimed bank vault in the heart of Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.
Jazz improvisation — but compact, to-the-point and organic as a mosquiter’s tweeter — dipped in krautrock, d&b, house and B-boy science. Featuring the brilliant vibes playing of Justefan, and local luminaries like Jeff Parker from Tortoise and De’Sean Jones from Underground Resistance.
Warmly recommended.

You can hear their stage experience in ‘the sizzle and swing of the percussive highlights here, programmed with a serious depth and wriggle that reflect both an extension of and return to form. Considerations of the machine-human interface, neurological realities and physical probabilities dominate. But these tracks are economical and precise, glittering with emotional depth and cinematic effects. The album’s core, a three-act movement of symphonic uncertainty and revelation, marks one of the pair’s most evocative compositions in a career full of them.’

A new suite, freshly introspective and personal. CC’s cosmic beeps and boops are home to roost, a kind of pointillism come mesmerically alive, studding surreal juxtapositions and industrial miasma across nine tracks.

Tony Allen, Max Loderbauer and Moritz von Oswald; mixed by Ricardo Villalobos.

Stunningly beautiful, poignant music from Bilād al-Shām — ‘the countries of Damascus’, known nowadays as Syria, Lebanon and Palestine — including performances from the very first recording sessions in the region.
The legendary, moody Beirut singer Būlus Ṣulbān is here — some historians have him singing before Egypt’s Pasha Ibrāhīm Bāshā during his military campaign in Syria, in 1841 — and Ḥasība Moshēh, Jewish ‘nightingale of the Damascene gardens’. Thurayyā Qaddūra from Jerusalem; Yūsuf Tāj, a folk singer from Mount-Lebanon; Farjallāh Baiḍā, cousin to the founders of Baidaphon Records… Musical directors like the lutist Qāsim Abū Jamīl al-Durzī and the violinist Anṭūn al-Shawwā (followed by his son Sāmī); such virtuosi as the qanun-players Nakhleh Ilyās al-Maṭarjī and Ya‘qūb Ghazāla, and lutist Salīm ‘Awaḍ.
Even at the time, notwithstanding such brilliance, public music-making was frowned upon as morally demeaning, especially for women. Musical venues were generally dodgy. Ṣulbān once cut short a wedding performance for the Beiruti posh, after just one song, he was so disgusted with his audience.
‘If I had to tell you about the catcalls,’ one commentator wrote about the musical theatre of the time, ‘the stomping of feet, the sound of sticks hitting the ground, the noise of the water-pipes, the teeth cracking watermelon seeds and pistachio nuts, the screams of the waiters, and the clinking of arak glasses on the tables, I would need to go on and on and on…’

This soundtrack to Romano Ferrara’s 1964 spy movie is one of PU’s best and most celebrated. Featuring Nini Rosso, Chet Baker, Bill Gilmore, Marcello Boschi and many others. Excellent sound, from the original analogue masters, with lots of bonus material; in a beautiful sleeve, with a reproduction of the original movie poster on the inside gatefold.

An astounding compilation of the breakneck Shangaan dance output of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009.

Consider it a Nicaraguan take on Herbie’s Mwandishi — this psychedelic swirl of Latin jazz and pan-American funk, marrying Lovo’s out guitarism with the fine percussion-work of Jose ‘Chepito’ Areas, from Santana.

‘An alluring, meditative, psychedelic brew of shamanic and alchemical rhythms and harmonies, ranging across a wide array of instruments and influences. Modular synths, a two-stringed erhu fiddle, flute, feedback, electronics, guitar, field recordings, and various percussion objects, in ritualistic studio sessions which are augmented and sampled over and over… with the controls set for other planes of there.’