Expert, highly entertaining survey of DIY punk in its late-seventies heyday.

‘Following up This Is Frafra Power, from the same Top Link studio, this is the music you hear on the cell phones, car speakers and sound systems around Bongo and Bolgatanga, the major cities of Ghana’s Upper East region. A mix of local rhythms and melodies played on traditional instruments, combined with producer Francis Ayamga’s Fruity Loops madness and Cubase electro, topped with the rhymes of local youngsters.
‘Zologo means crazy in Fare Fare (also known as Frafra), the main language here. This is fierce, energetic, joyfully obstinate music; wonderfully bonkers.’

Over the last sixty-odd years Dolly Parton has written almost every major hit she has ever had (and quite a few minor ones, too). Her brilliant songs are covered here by everyone from Betty LaVette and Percy Sledge to Ru Paul and Nana Mouskouri. The booklet has some lovely, rare photos, and rich, track-by-track notes.

A new album by one half of the mighty Pilotwings crew. Guillaume Lespinasse convenes a sublimely alluring, ambient seance, invoking the spirits of Jon Hassell and Terry Riley, as befits the soundtrack of a dreamt Jacques Rivette movie. Imagine an impossible, questing collaboration between Les Disques Du Crepuscule and deep ECM. Imagine the long-awaited return of Berceuse Heroique and pinch yourself.

Half price.

Prime Cuts from the legendary Scratch Perverts crew with an upful six-tracker, full of life and intelligence, and teeming with fidgety, DIY, turntablist energy.
For us it’s a bit like a raid on the racks at Honest Jons, over the decades… but fresh and bright. It kicks off with a headlong garbling of eighties jazz-funk, complete with synths, a vocoder, and some incipient Herbie, all sagging woozily into some nuts pitch control, before a mean beat-down. Some dubwise Channel One follows up, with almightily anthemic snatches of melody and unmistakable chords, almost breaking down under a barrage of skittering effects, scratching, laser-fire, strangulated melodica, and cowbell. Then three excursions in classic Detroit techno: moody electro funk, with a sprinkling of Harold Faltermeyer; hard-grooving minimalism, with a dash of It Takes Two; then a more industrial outing, with clattering percussion and gobbling synth. Finally an ambient interlude — overcast but twinklingly ambivalent — to close.
Ace. A lot of fun. Check it out.

Sixteen newly-discovered recordings from the Incredible Beat Of Soweto tour of the UK in 1988-89, including smash hits like Thokozile, Lilizela, Kazet, and the rest.
Bees-knees, overproof-vibes mbaqanga.