Astounding 1982 conjurations of ancient ragas on the Roland TB-303 and TR-808 synths which would define Acid. Pulsating, minimal grooves; a living Indian antecedent of House.

Released in cooperation with Singh’s estate. With a sixteen-page LP booklet containing previously-unpublished photos and two new essays. Remastered; luxuriating over four sides for maximum aural impact.

‘The mesmeric bass lines, the spare simplicity of the arrangements and the constant motion make the whole work a proper piece of electro history, akin to Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4 for its understated visionary importance’ (Mojo).

Kora and cello interplay.

Four members of Sonny Okosun’s band, edging things on in 1974: deep, spacey afro-funk.

‘SK Kakraba is a master of the gyil xylophone — fourteen wooden slats strung across calabash resonators. The silk walls of spiders’ egg sacs — ‘paapieye’ in the Lobi language — are stretched across holes in the gourds, giving each note a buzzy rattle. SK learned as a child from elders in his Lobi community in the far northwest reaches of Ghana.’
Beautiful, spare, mesmeric recordings — song cycles, dirges, improvisations based on traditional songs, original compositions — newly made.

Improvisatory solo piano from 1965 — a trans-Mediterranean crossover based on traditional Algerian song, with roots in Spanish Islamic culture.
Spare, pellucid, and meditative; testing out variations with madcap ivories tickler Johnny Bach at his shoulder.
Hotly recommended.

Superb, timber-shivering example of the city’s more elevated style of fado. Highly recommended.

Thirty-five stingers from an HMV run of more than four hundred 78s, recordings made in Uganda and Kenya from the mid-1930s till the mid-1950s.

The second half of the CD.

Fine Malian blues, with contributions from Ali Farka Toure.

A miraculous bouquet of gagaku, shakuhachi, shamisen, storytelling, folksong and more, including the first commercial recordings in Asia.

Ritual music from Tamil country performed by nagasvaram oboes, tavil drums, talam castanets, and droning harmonium, or sruti petti (without a keyboard, powered by bellows).

Deeply moving violin-playing, unfolding and illuminating the emotional twists and turns of a single, hour-long raga.

Based on the raga and pan, these short hymns to Shiva, performed by the oduvar cantors, are sung at daily rituals and for calendar feasts in temples of Tamil Nadu.

Ragas with intensely controlled and expressive singing from South India, in the uncommon, neglected Carnatic tradition.