Dark, hypnotic, tripping nyabinghi from 1974.
Led by Ras Michael over four extended excursions, the music is organic, sublime and expansive, grounation-drums and bass heavy (with no rhythm guitar, rather Willie Lindo brilliantly improvising a kind of dazed, harmolodic blues).
Lloyd Charmers and Federal engineer George Raymond stayed up all night after the session, to mix the recording, opening out the enraptured mood into echoing space, adding sparse, startling effects to the keyboards.
At no cost to its deep spirituality, this is the closest reggae comes to psychedelia.

Previously-unreleased takes of this ball of fire hurtling East with no survivors (from the second Ska Authentic). Pitiless, wondrous companion-piece to Last Call, from the same session.

Kaboom!
Flashing the black spot of Niney at his deadliest — Zorro, merciless avenger of the oppressed, re-stoking the furnace of his Westbound Train, but wheeling around and blazing eastwards…
And that’s only a secret-weapon version of None Shall Escape The Judgement on the other side, with Owen Grey at the mic.
Raging Tubbys fire.

Deeply zonked and moody variation on The Abyssinians’ classic, with a wicked blend of kit and machine drums. Rough.

Killer lost blaxploitation soundtrack to Calvin Lockhart’s 1974 film fiasco — deep JA funk, rocking lovers, moody dub, punchy Carib jazz, and sweet soul, bubbling together, warmed by the genius of US inspiration like Jimmy Smith, Curtis Mayfield, and The Meters. There’s a deejay version of John Holt’s Same Song, with a red-eyed nod to U-Roy and Scotty from ‘The Scorpion’. Keyboardist Leslie Butler tears up the deadly instrumental originals Funky Nigger, Negril, and Ghetto Funk (which kicked off Darker Than Blue). Boris is especially heartfelt on the acoustic version of Star (which he wrote, and Big Youth covered). Gardiner on bass and Paul Douglas on drums keep it tight as Titus Andronicus; Tommy McCook leads the horns; Sid Bucknor from Studio One is at the controls, inside Channel One.

Herman Sang (from the Jiving Juniors) was at Brentford Road from the start, in the late-1950s.
This is wistful organ-combo r&b — pre-ska — with some sweet calypso jazz on the flip.

Pure loveliness, deep and stately.
Plus Patsy dishing it straight back to Johnnie Taylor on the flip, with a reworking of Blues In The Night.

Killer Duke Reid productions, originally put together in 1969. Also featuring Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond, Rico Rodriguez and full Skatalites crew; Justin Hines, Stranger Cole and Millicent Patsy Todd.

Irresistibly bouncy, pestiferous and nostalgic do-over of the version of One Note Samba/Spanish Flea which Sergio Mendes cut for Herb Alpert, with Lani Hall singing.
Perhaps a shame Homer Simpson wasn’t in Kingston at the time.
The flip-side sets the stage for Lloyd ‘Reggae Feet’ Williams with a quick mashing of the intro to I Can’t Help Myself by the Four Tops into some chords from Rescue Me by Fontella Bass.

An excellent introduction — a tip-top, well-paced selection ranging across styles and vintages, with some marvellous photographs of the great man at Kingston airport, Canada-bound.