Superb roots, tough dub. A dilly from Tilly. Larry nuh tarry.

Tremendous, transformative interpretation of the Bassies at Studio One — mournful, trenchant, rocking, heavy, dubwise… bad.

Moody, heavy lovers, detourned by FW’s full-throated falsetto. Ace.

Long-gone, under-the-radar garage bomb from quartermaster Daphni.

Always hard-sought-after for the jazz dance gem Tabu, and the overall blend of Cal Tjader, Les Baxter and Luiz Bonfa. “In a way it’s world music,” says Don. “Polynesian, samba, Brazil, jazz, West Indian. It has the energy of Latin and funk records.”

Lovely record. An intimate, unshowy, reaching blend of British folk and minimalism in the tradition of Robert Wyatt solo; quietly co-mingling Henry Flynt and Ivor Cutler, Eastern outernationalism and Radio art. Beautifully presented, too; in a die-cut, inside-out sleeve, with a poster. Check it out!

The definitive edition, with much better sound than any of the rather garbled ESP iterations.
‘Recorded on May 18, 1966 at St Lawrence University, Potsdam, NY, Nothing Is…Completed & Revisited has Ra, who was at the time only just beginning to perform on the US college circuit, testing the water with a programme drawn from several stages of his work with the Arkestra. There are space chants (Outer Spaceways Incorporated, Next Stop Mars, Second Stop Is Jupiter, We Travel The Spaceways), a salute to the swing era (Velvet, from the 1959 Saturn masterpiece Jazz In Silhouette), far-out material such as the sixteen minute version of Outer Nothingness from the 1965 ESP album The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra Vol. l, and trippy exotica such as reed player Marshall Allen’s oboe feature Exotic Forest, here given its first airing on disc.
‘The twelve-piece band is killer, with Allen, tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick and trombonists Ali Hassan and Teddy Nance propelled by the A-team anchors Ronnie Boykins on bass and tuba and Clifford Jarvis on drums. Everyone, including Ra on clavioline and piano, is on top form’ (Chris May, All About Jazz).

Horatian worries on the wicked E20 rhythm.

Underground soul and funk from early-seventies LA — Henry Porter, Jechonias Williams and co, with one foot inside the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band — lovingly unearthed by Now Again.

Off-the-wall James Brown runnings, coming apart at the seams in Antananarivo, Madagascar, in 1967.

Unmissable, mid-seventies, undercover Viceroys, plus three deadly versions.
A swingeing Niney-style rhythm; superb, swirling dub. King Tubby’s way with the vocal is unforgettable.
It’s a must.

A re-rub of classic Digital Mystikz to celebrate Ancient Monarchy’s fifth release already, laced with oblique, Autechre-style melodiousness, and bass-bin armageddon. Next up, Sweet Sixteen is psychedelic techno-not-techno for early-morning dancefloors, complete with a sleazy EBM/New Beat dub by DJ October.

Improvisations between Greenberger reading texts from his massive archive of old people’s testimony, Jones playing banjo and guitar, Corsano on drums.
‘Despite the dark and sad feeling of some of the texts (dealing with aging, memory loss etc), there is also humor, joy and grit. The album is a rollercoaster of emotions, a glittering patchwork of sonic atmospheres and an oral encyclopedia on dozens of subjects, like coffee, cigarettes, planets, art ... life ... and death.’