The 1972 LP coupled with an equally rare film from 1970, The Secret Of Sleep.

Zinging folk-blues session discovered in the tape cupboard of a Milwaukee radio station. Originals, Lomax stuff, blues covers. Rated a key influence by David Bowie, Lucinda Williams, John Lennon and co.

An intimate, profound documentary about buckdancing legend Thomas Maupin. Here’s a little ole trailer: http://vimeo.com/6434834.

A suite inspired by Eduardo Galeano’s Memory Of Fire — a history of the Americas told through indigenous myths and the accounts of European colonizers.
The wonderful pianist with Ron Miles on cornet, Liberty Ellman on guitar, Stomu Takeishi on bass, and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, ranging through Pan-Americana, hardcore jazz, the blues, and African and Eastern elements.
Staunch Myra admirers, us lot, ever since her first Hat Huts.

A trio recording live in 1993, with Lindsay Horner on bass and Reggie Nicholson on drums, throwing down thrillingly engaging iterations of classic blues, jump and stride in the manner of contemporaries like Cecil Taylor and Horace Silver.
One of the great piano jazz albums. Hotly recommended.

The pianist’s Fire and Water Quintet, with Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid, Ingrid Laubrock, and Susie Ibarra.

Tremendous.
High-drama, dubwise Channel One, with deadly guitar and congas, and fatter-than-Fat-Albert trombone.

Unmissable rocksteady: a magnificent version of the Curtis; and a hard-rocking Never Let Me Go.

The Basic Channel maestro takes on Konono. So brawling and bad-minded, dense and intense, and musically expert, it amounts to a ritual humiliation of the genre Dub Techno.

From the Tree Person’s solo album Real Life And Fiction: a punky-folk drone with chimes; disconsolate cheer-leading on the flip.

‘Birkin’s 1973 album Di Doo Dah was a brilliant confection of symphonic pop, filled with dark, strange songs every bit as fantastic as those on the albums Gainsbourg released under his own name in the early 70s, arguably the height of his powers: listen to the superb Encore Lui for proof’ (The Guardian).
With inimitable arrangements and orchestral direction by Jean-Claude Vannier.
The lyrics are transcribed and translated into English in the booklet, alongside some nice new photos.

Precious relics from Berlin, 1908. UNESCO has stumped up for a lavish presentation, with fine notes and translations; but surely the fly in the ointment is the difficulty of actually listening through the music.