Neglected, stunning, mystical Upsetters roots — with scrumptiously extended trombone — first released in Amsterdam on Henk Targowski’s Black Art imprint (bundled with special mixes of Cane River Rock and Dread Lion).
Six tracks spanning infectious Polish disco (Karolak and Korzyński), bustling break-heavy jazz from the Polski Jazz Ensemble and Russki Yahilevich, heartwarming spiritual jazz from Hungary’s Binder Quintet (featuring John Tchicai)... and Alojz Bouda’s oddball Slovakian synth banger, Random.
Eight charged, intimate meditations by Julie Normal and Olivier Demeaux, playing a rickety ondes Martenot and an old church harmonium.
Gripping, detailed, stately improvisation — a bit like the ùrlars in classical bagpipe music — which nervily mixes the sternly doom-laden with precarious, other-worldly wonderment.
(The ondes Martenot is an amazing twentieth-century instrument — beloved by Messiaen, for example, and Varese. The theme-song of Star Trek is a vocal forgery of its sound. ‘J’aime cette fragilité qui côtoie la capacité de te décoller le tympan sur certaines fréquences inopinément,’ says Julie. ‘Je tiens une bombe dans les mains. J’aime son instabilité, son humanité.’)
Wood, breath, blood, eggshells… on the night of a purple moon.
Very warmly recommended.
The classic Scientist dub LP, plus vocal counterparts by the likes of Wayne Wade and the Wailing Souls.
The classic set of Scientist / Roots Radics dubs, originally out on Starlight Records in 1981, now matched with its vocal counterparts, including previously unreleased cuts by Junior Reid and Ranking. The vinyl comes with a two-feet-square colour poster of Tony McDermott’s cover art.