The 1973 soundtrack for René Laloux’s philosophical tale of anticipation, where men are used as domestic toys by blue giants, the Draags.
The orchestral expansiveness recalls Goraguer’s sixties projects with Serge Gainsbourg, but teleported to a psychedelic spaceway of its own, mapped out in a series of vignettes — moody, baroque, wasted, hypnotic, out-there — with funky wah-wah guitars, flutes, Fender Rhodes, breaks-n-beats drumming, and haunting effects.
Demonstrably beloved by Dilla, Madlib, Air, and co.

A new deluxe edition, mixed from the recently discovered multi-track tapes, including seven previously unreleased tracks and three alternate mixes.

Triumphantly reviving all-time-classic Jammy’s. Proper dub, too.

Johnnie ‘Who’s Making Love’ Taylor, Jimmie Outler, Paul Foster, S.R. Crain and James ‘Love Is a Five-Letter Word’ Phelps; the albums Jesus Be A Fence Around Me and Encore!!, plus seven tracks recovered from singles and a label compilation, and four previously unissued — all recorded between September 1959 and July 1964. With an excellent essay, which traces the Stirrers’ story to their formation in 1926.
Stealin in the name of the Lord… this is a terrific bargain.

Bobby Womack, with brothers Curtis, Harry, Friendly Jr and Cecil; produced by Sam Cooke between June 1961 and September 1964, for his own SAR label. Gospel as the Womack Brothers; R&B as the Valentinos, including the original version of It’s All Over Now. With seven previously unreleased tracks, and excellent notes, drawing on interviews with several members of the group.

The classic digital destroyer, recorded at Aquarius in 1987.
Cyaan be no loefah.

Ndikho Xaba was born in 1934 in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa: for thirty-four years —  1964 –1998 — he lived in exile in the US, Canada and Tanzania. Originally issued by Trilyte Records out of Oakland, California, this 1970 recording is bracing, freewheeling Now Thing, suffused with SA idioms, and focussed by a political urgency wiring together US Black Power, Black Aesthetics and the anti-apartheid front-line like nothing else. You can hear Trane from the off — ‘a spiritual offering to my ancestors’  — and plenty of Sun Ra, with whom The Natives several times shared double-bills. Freedom is a gutbucket-soul rendition of the people’s anthem; that’s Plunky from the Oneness Of Juju playing saxophone on Nomusa; the thunderous finale features drummer Keita from the West Indies, and Baba Duru, who studied percussion in India, before winding up with Xaba blowing eerily through a horn made from a giant piece of tubular seaweed.

Guaranteed to put a beam on your bean and a glide in your stride, the DVD here compiles moments from a local 1982 TV show, broadcast live from a club called The CopHerBox. It’s pleasurable enough just watching people get down so naturally, in a real-life club… but you also get ventriloquists, contortionists, body-builders, impersonators, ‘the full-figured ladies fashion show’, comedy sketches, android group-dancing to techno, rubber chickens… and bands like Universal Togetherness miming to their latest records. There’s also a mini-documentary, complete with Phil Cohran section; and twenty-three full musical performances. (Finally the Dingwalls posse gets a glimpse of Luba Raushiek in action.)
The CD and vinyls are culled from a trove of self-released 45s and small-time twelves; a die-cut cathode-ray jacket and six in-package stills are your tickets and souvenirs.
Great fun.

His soundtrack to Claude Sautet’s 1972 film, featuring Romy Schneider’s haunting voice-over of La Lettre De Rosalie. ‘Like a magical bridge between baroque and electronic music, mixing Moog synthesizer sequences with acoustic instruments.’

The GRM don letting his hair down, in this 1982 soundtrack to the film Rock, performed on a TR-808 drum-machine, Synthi AKS, and Farfisa organ and clavinet. Nineteen shots mixing together electro, Radiophonics and John Carpenter. Bracing, brilliant, highly accessible; warmly recommended.

New minings of his mountains of work for the screen — dozens of documentaries, shorts, features, animations — and for dance, stage and television.

Classic mood-lifting party stomper, with RC rabbiting on about how he likes to party, over a looped sample from Blue Magic’s Welcome To The Club. With a dub, besides two mixes and an accapella.
‘Doctor Love was my song, and I would only take deep breaths, and fill my lungs with the rhythm, with the bass… I get deep.’

Ska And Jump Up For Your Happy Dancing And Listening.
Ebullient Sonia Pottinger showcase out on Doctor Bird in 1966. Oswald ‘Baba’ Brooks and his group backing The Saints, The Techniques and co.

Wicked, stinging sister-funk self-penned by the mighty soul singer, before more celebrated sojourns at Atlantic and Columbia. The flip is previously unreleased; also terrific.

Stylishly reined-in, Southern-flavoured, churchy soul — same neck of the woods as Aretha — half recorded in Memphis by Jackie’s cousin Dave Crawford, including her smash hit Precious, Precious, with the Memphis Horns in full effect (and Dr. John, on Time); and half at Sigma, with Earl Young, Bobby Eli and co.
(Jackie Moore is well-known but under-rated. Try to track down the CD set The Complete Atlantic Recordings for a bunch of killer previously-unreleased sides.)

‘What playing!’ raved Alex Ross in the New Yorker. ‘Notes were placed with surgical care; inner voices gleamed in crystalline patterns; elusive emotional states were painted with quick, light strokes.’
A compendium of tiny homages to composers from Scarlatti to Stravinsky, and tributes to colleagues and influences, interspersed with heart-stopping Bach transcriptions. The wit and sublimity of these games, the incisiveness of the playing, four hands on the piano, and the affection between the elderly partners, are really something to see. Off the beaten path for us, but hotly recommended.

Legs eleven — Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, Mikel Patrick Avery, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Macie Stewart, Angelica Sanchez, and John Herndon; with Damon Locks contributing lyrics and vocals.
‘Somehow swirling adventurous elements of avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical into the most universal attractors of pop music, the cosmic opera of Dimensional Stardust is a pure spiritual extension of the unifying ethos of the Exploding Star Orchestra.’

‘Dedicated to Jaimie Branch, this features a compacted version of Mazurek’s long-running Exploding Star Orchestra, including guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn.
‘Drop the needle and immediately find this crew deep in a chromatic funk fantasy of outer-space grooves and Bartokian riffs. MC Damon Locks brings the Deltron 3030 energy while pianist Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez face-off from behind Wurlitzer pianos and Moog synthesizers. Parker is in absolute space shred mode.’

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.