Mid-nineties kwaito by Thami Mdluli (veteran of chart-toppers Taboo and CJB, and in-demand producer of the likes of Sox and Sensations).
Tasty, infectious rhythms and synth-work — if the singing is a bit Black Box — with an up-for-it, DIY energy and self-identity encouraged by the momentum of the liberation struggle in this period. “Once Mandela was released from prison and people felt more free to express themselves and move around town, kwaito was becoming the thing,” says Thami.

‘The first thing is how unhinged it all sounds. The album brews and boils with an ominously dark tone in a desolate space, dense with energy, guitar overdriven past the point of sanity, slamming drum accents, vocals cutting through in what seems to be comprised of another, as yet unheard, language. Yet, inside the apparent wild abandon and destruction is a strict internal logic of construction that unveils itself upon listening…’ With Noel Von Harmonson from Comets On Fire on drums, and Rob Fisk from Badgerlore sharing the bass-playing with San Francisco psych legend Charlie Saufley.

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.

Andaleeb Wasif was a self-taught singer and harmonium player, born in Hyderabad, India, in 1928.
Here are six ravishing ghazals, setting some of the greatest Urdu poetry of the twentieth century, about love and longing.
Enigmatic, filled with pathos, timeless.

The first-round-knockout is an inspired elaboration of Everybody Loves The Sunshine. (You can hear singer Kenny Stover’s years with Marvin Gaye, too.) Plus terrific original versions of I’m Back For More and Madame Butterfly, as smashed by Al Johnson and Tavares.

The first of two LPs recorded by the vibes player for the Detroit label Tuba, after Riverside went under in 1964.
With regular trio partners organist Milt Harris and drummer Peppy Hinnant; and Wynton Kelly and George Duvivier dropping in.
Featuring a cracking version of Duke Pearson’s Christo Redentor, and grooving rug-cutters Possum Grease and Hot Sauce… besides the stone-classic Dingwalls-floor-filler The Man.