Spare, slow burning soul with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis at its core, from 1989 Detroit, courtesy of the Inner City milieu. On the flip, the dubwise club mix of I’m Losing Control is ace Motor City house, with heavy, grooving bass, splashing drum machine, and driving-by-night keys.

A bobbing, minimal groover from the Berlin corner, dug-in and funked-up over ten minutes; and icily original, top-dog work from Pev, tethered between a kind of arrested Highlife and a Detroit breakout.

A moody, dubwise, to-the-barricades brew of jungle, rave, dubstep, and techno.
Over the five cuts, an opening, evocative, littoral play between discombobulation and mysticism gives way to mounting abrasiveness, before fetching up in the inner chambers of the temple room, echoing and spooky, with acoustic percussion.

Killer EP. Next-level Shackleton.
Taking off from Beaugars Seck’s foundational sabar drum rhythms — recorded by Sam in Dakar in February 2020 — Shackleton has constructed a trio of intricately layered, luminous, enchanted, epic excursions. The second is more dazzled and meandering, with jellied bass, insectile detail, and discombobulated jabbering; the third is more liquid, fleet of foot, and psychedelic, with a grooving b-line and funky keyboard stabs, scrambled eastern strings and hypnotic vocalese.
The harmonium in The Overwhelming Yes sounds like Nico blowing in chillily from up the desert shore.
The overall mood is wondrous, twinkling with light, onwards-and-upwards; an uncanny, dubwise mix of the ancient and the futuristic.
Mark Ernestus’ Version is stripped, trepidatious, mystical, and stranger still, with just a snatch of the original melody, extra distortion and delay, and crystal-clear drum sound.

So… Twenty minutes of startlingly original music, with Shackleton the maestro at the top of his game, and a characteristically evilous dub by Mark Ernestus. Mastered by Rashad Becker; handsomely sleeved.
Sick to the nth. Love 4 Ever.

UK soundboy frighteners from 2006.
Common Ground playing trumps.

Magnificent, extended interpretation of his own Rastaman Camp classic for Studio One; this time with Niney at the controls. More trenchant and purposeful, less ecstatic. Burning, jazzy horns stand in for the nyabinghi drums of the earlier cut. Freddie slays it. ‘Throw away your folly.’

Luigi Pirandello provides the conceit for the tenth Baroque Sunburst: his thinking about masks, duplicity, and ensnarement; the idea that ‘self’ and ‘identity’ are unattainable plenitudes; that we are all trapped behind masks and other concealments.
Hence each of the four tracks is designed for playback at either 33 or 45 rpm. Maschera itself is a half-time stomper with the slithering grace of a snake, intricate IDM refrains, and riddling drum patterns. Trappola is melodic hide-and-seek, with a stately, captivating tribal rhythm which slowly gathers intensity. The snake returns in Specchio, biting its own tail in an endless birth-death infinity mirror… before KRSLD brings the curtain down with a dubwise, dancehall rework of the opener, teasing the snake into the open. Or does it?

‘A new twist to the Don’t DJ sound. Leftfield tribalism at its best, with a pinch of Zoviet France fourth world voodoo for the 5am crew that wants to get hazy in the dance. A drum ritual of epic proportions.
‘Then Morgan Buckley — from the mighty Wah Wah Wino crew — takes up this deep and intense trip…  and goes ballistic. He peppers the original with some live Bodhran drumming to invoke the ancient Celtic spirits. If the essence of a remix is to keep the original vibe of the tune and add a different flavour to it, Morgan Buckley nailed it in a big way.’

Island disco sung by a Rasta in the Bronx, over an 808 & chopper bass, with a gospel chorus, and fuzz guitar which sounds like P-Funk! Originally released in 1982 on the Sunshine label.
Plus Wilie Lindo leading a mellow instrumental version of Barry White’s Midnight & You, with Lloyd Charmers at the controls, for all the lovers in the dance. Original released in 1975 on Wild Flower.