Their masterful sixth LP, from 1975, produced and arranged by Charles Stepney.
This is sheer class all the way but highlights include the perfectly tooled funk of Shining Star, the ravishing mid-tempo title-track, Philip Bailey in full-flight on the killer ballad Reasons, the Janus-faced Africano shunting Chicagoan antecedents like Phil Cohran into hot jazz-funk…
Start here if you don’t own any Earth Wind & Fire.

His first album; released in 1967 by Philips.
‘On the eve of the rise of Tropicalismo and electric guitars, the Bahian artist’s guitar is the star of the arrangements orchestrated by Carlos Monteiro e Souza, Dori Caymmi, and Leonardo Bruno. Social, political, and religious issues are transformed into sambas, bossa nova, and classic carnival song, as well as Northeastern rhythms. Gil calls for the people’s attention on the title track, a formidable collaboration with Torquato Neto, also co-author of A Rua, a precocious and bittersweet nostalgic baião. His passion for Bahia spreads like the waters in the lyrical Beira-Mar, composed with Caetano Veloso. Equally poetic is Gil’s vision of the Soviet spacecraft’s moon landing in Lunik 9: ‘Maybe there’s no more moonlight to illuminate my song.’. The young people are called to see truth prevail in a carnival filled with political significance in ‘Ensaio Geral.’ Ancient festivities are recalled in O Rancho da Rosa Vermelha, written with Torquato and Geraldo Vandré, while samba schools get a shout out in Mancada, a great samba full of bossa nova. Written with João Augusto, the brilliant Roda stands out for its rhythmic inventiveness and critical lyrics. A celebration of northeastern resistance, Viramundo is a collaboration with Capinan, as is the nostalgic Água dos Meninos. The simple Maria (Me Perdoa, Maria) is the album’s romantic moment. Sertanejo faith and its social contours are the theme of Procissão, one of Gilberto Gil’s most beautiful and important songs, which closes the album.’

‘At 36 years old, in exuberant form, revisiting songs of his which hit for other artists, like Bastidores (which revived Cauby Peixoto’s career) and Morena de Angola (a smash for Clara Nunes). Released in December 1980, when Brazil was rehearsing its redemocratization even in the throes of continuing political violence, Vida dicloses an artist emerging from censorship. In the irresistible dancehall samba Deixa a Menina, he relishes a feminist response to Geraldo Pereira’s syncopated classic Sem Compromisso: ‘Behind a sad man, there’s always a happy woman / And behind that woman, a thousand men, always so kind.’ The Cubano title track spotlights a character near death, looking back with bittersweet ambivalence, and tightly holding on. ‘Light, I want light,’ sings Chico, threading Goethe’s famous last words into the sublime orchestration of Francis Hime, who creates the masterful arrangements on ten of the twelve songs, elucidating the delicacy of classics like Mar e Lua and Qualquer Canção, and lending the appropriate grandeur to Fantasia. Tom Jobim contributes the arrangement and piano of the masterpiece Eu Te Amo, co-written with Buarque. Another triumph is the bolero-style Bye Bye, Brasil, co-written with Roberto Menescal, humorously reviewing the profound transformation of Brazil during the previous decade.’

A bonafide MPB classic.

Proper socialist to the bone. Great novelist, too.

‘Queered allusions to Lutheran hymnals, almost unbearably tense passages of frenzied repetition, and explosions of melodic ecstasy,’ performed by the twenty-piece strings, horns, reeds, and pianos of the Wild Up ensemble.
According to musicologist and composer Luciano Chessa, ‘if all of Eastman’s music but this one were to disappear, Gay Guerrilla would still be enough to guarantee him a firm place in the history of twentieth-century music.’

A stupendous haul of music by farmers turned musicians working out of DIY rural studios; drawn from the past decade by Sahel Sounds for its new imprint.
The top artists of the scene — Dickson Gawani, Bala Zaaku, Yaa Naara and others — ranging across styles and subjects, from political commentary to warrior clan rhythms.
Extensive liner notes, with artist interviews, cultural history, and song translations.
Hyper-electronic and densely percussive, moody and transgressive, pulsating and bleeping, body-rocking… this is terrific. Don’t miss it.

‘Recordings from early 2025, while Johnny was bed-bound in an assisted living facility with multiple sclerosis. He speaks into an iPhone laid gently on his chest, in remarkably tender and emotive form. Love in all its permutations. The tangled, but caring nature of familial love, to the anguish and euphoria of romantic connection. Johnny has a remarkable ability to pose questions, and answers, that reflect the truest of realities, without cliche.
‘Joel Nelson nimbly helms the nearly entirely electronic backdrop, with Buchla Music Easel bubbling up between Johnny’s stream of consciousness. At times, Broadcast’s fuzzed out ballads come to mind, while at others, early Oneohtrix Point Never’s gauzy, distant drones cast anchor beneath the slippery syntax.’

‘Verve Vault.’

Killer, rugged, deep, seventies roots.
B/w a mento-style sufferers, originally released on Ackie in 1969.

Rootsy, state-of-the-art Afrobeats.

Superb, revered version-excursion in the grand tradition of Tempo Explosion. Willie Williams kicks off imperiously, on a classic Rhythm & Sound rhythm adroitly evoking Niney’s way with horns. Sugar and Tikkiman take a turn, besides Berlin faces like Cotton and Rod Of Iron. No one puts a foot wrong.

The first definitive reissue of this 1977 session recorded at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana; restoring previously excised material, a true running order, and the natural transitions between pieces.
‘The Arkestra were at the peak of their powers in 1977, releasing revered albums like The Soul Vibration Of Man and My Favorite Things, with Arkestra regulars Marshall Allen, Danny Ray Thompson, Michael Ray and Luqman Ali among the core musicians. Ra also continued his touring in Europe with historic gigs in Italy. During this period, Arkestra live performances were often loosely structured into thematic blocks that moved from reflections on jazz history to cosmic ‘space narrative’ sections featuring collective chants, extended Africa/Egypt-inspired grooves and selections from the Great American Songbook. This recording brings in all of these features with re-imagined versions of standards like Take The A Train, St. Louis Blues, and title track Over The Rainbow, alongside rarely recorded Ra compositions like Make Another Mistake and Amen Meni Many Amens. Ra conducted improvisations to guide the listener seamlessly from one musical scene to the next. As he described it: ‘It’s like a party—we enjoy ourselves and everybody’s invited to enjoy it with us.’
Newly remastered using the original source tapes; extensive new liner notes by Chris Cutler