Original 1961 dub-plate.

Warda Ftouki is one of the great Arab divas of the twentieth century.
Aka Warda Al-Jazairia, Warda the Algerian was forced to leave Algeria in 1956, when FLN guns were discovered in her dad’s nightclub. (Warda was a lifelong, unflinching supporter of independence.)
Aged twenty, now singing in Beirut cabarets, she became the protege of Mohammed Abdel Wahab. Returning to Algeria after independence in 1961, she took a ten year break from singing, because this was forbidden by her new husband. She left him in 1972, moving to Egypt, where she married Baligh Hamdi.
Here she is in 1973, singing a composition by Hamdi, backed by a full Egyptian orchestra, including electric guitar and organ, in front of a euphoric, adoring crowd.
Wonderful music — swirling and grooving with dazzling virtuosity; imperiously funky and giddily soulful.

The great Algerian diva of Arab song — a Dilla favourite, incidentally — accompanied by a full-sized orchestra, augmented by electric guitar and organ, in a characteristically grooving, classy composition by her old man Baligh Hamdi. This reissue features newly remastered audio, the original cassette artwork, and a two-page insert with a new introduction by Mario Choueiry from the Institut du Monde Arabe

Two teenagers’ amapiano music from Gauteng province in South Africa, drawing on jazz, folk, afro, deep and tech house, kwaito, and dibacardi… but sounding like none of them.

Frank Hutchison, Fiddlin’ John Carson, Gid Tanner, Georgia stringbands, Roscoe Holcomb, Mountain Music, Jimmie Rodgers, New Lost City Ramblers, Preston Young, the Delmore Brothers, the Tennessee ramblers, Bob Wills, Jesse Rodgers, Swift Jewel Cowboys, the Piedmont Log Rollers, the Foggy Mountain Boys, the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers etc etc.
1971-89. The entire run, 1-45, except issues 2 and 3.

Eighty-six issues, between numbers 15-161, years 1968-95.