Wonderful third album, from 1975, with the almighty jazz-funk masterpiece Rock Creek Park and the get-down-and-party murder of Happy Music (as rinsed by Kool Herc and a cast of millions). Takes your troubles off your mind.
‘Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series.’

Rough, rousing gospel recorded live in 1987 by the seventy-nine-year-old (who came through busking in Washington DC). Mostly traditional songs, with Flora’s full-flavoured singing self-accompanied on slide, and extra guitar backing by Eleanor Ellis.

Exclusive mixes of key versions in the TS mission so far, dub-plate style.

Three excellent, diverse vocal excursions on a heavy, mid-eighties, Channel One-style rhythm by The Gladiators Band. The dub follows Frankie.

A double-header, with Prince Allah reviving the Melodians on the flip. Both extended. Mixed by Prince Jammy.

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.

Two pieces of sweet lovers rock, with backing by The Wailers.

Family Man and Jimmy Riley had worked together in the late sixties — a Hippy Boy and a Unique — way before this terrific collaboration in tough, anguished sufferers, woozy with the natural mystic, around the same time as Cobra Style. Signature Wailers music-making seals the deal, with classy, burning horns.

Uku Kuut and his mum, on boogie patrol.

Superb, previously unreleased ska group-vocal, with Baba Brooks and co in fine form.

This is terrific. Rawly soulful trio jazz.
‘There’s no denying the expressiveness of Jones’ music. His sustained, lancing high notes, coarse overblowing and strategically managed vibrato can signify open pain and more complex syntheses of emotion. On No More My Lord, the sole cover in an otherwise original sequence of compositions, bassist Chris Lightcap’s bowed bass and Gerald Cleaver’s scrabbling percussion amplify the dolour and desperation in his playing…’ (The Wire).

Yellow vinyl.