AS Colour heavy L/S.

‘folk album of the year’ (The Observer); ‘*****  ... not a note is wasted’ (Time Out); **** Mojo; **** Uncut; ‘Compilation Of The Year’ (The Guardian).

Alasdair Roberts, Nancy Elizabeth, Michael Hurley, James Yorkston, Victoria Williams, Richard Youngs: six ravishing, luminous new interpretations. Short-run vinyl sampler, fine pressing, silk-screened sleeves.

Chaabi — ‘of the people’ — has its roots in the Andalusian music of Moorish Spain, spreading to North Africa with exiled Jewish and Moorish communities; but it really took off in post-WWII Algiers…

A Lagos fuji session sets Diplo tearing up walls and stomping across the ceiling; a fragment of afro-folk percussion triggers the Generals’ brilliant futurism; and two sumptuous cuts of the original deal.

‘So it is that Honest Jon’s has (again) unearthed an episode of black music history in Britain: these are tough cuts — in no way easy listening, but absolutely essential’ (**** The Observer).

‘Beautiful, haunting… spiritual reflection is sung with carnal force, songs of romance are rendered like hymns. For a few moments, on these ancient records, Baghdad sounds like paradise’ (Rolling Stone).

‘A wicked sense of pacing, of beauty and absurdity, and an instinctive ear for musical action’ (The New York Times). ‘There’s no theme or continuity… unless you count sheer awesomeness’ (Fader).

Lest we forget.
Torsten Profrock’s occult homage to UK garage is one of the gems in the HJ label catalogue. It’s one of our own handful of favourites.
Two-step waylaid in the scuffed, churning, sub-heavy terrain running from his Chain Reaction days to Monolake; mysteriously entangled with the distressed tracks of old Ugandan 78s.

Marvellous Boy is the West African counterpart of the 1950s Soho scene of our series London Is The Place For Me. Calypso, highlife and jazz, brimming over with lust for life, topicality, and extravagant creativity.

Dazzling melds of classic Detroit, grime, dubstep, speed garage, Paisley rock, synth-wave and the rest, with none other than the man not-himself crowned king.

Three exclusives trailering the Splazsh album, including a carnivalesque house banger from Zomby. Out Detroit, UK bass science and UK funky, cold wave and Kraftwerk… a London thing, mongrel and dashing.

An immersive, slashing, ecstatic thumper, just about getting Mars on the radio; and a kind of unhinged marimba and thumb-piano variation, grubbing around manically in half-memories of African polyrhythm.

The implacable, alien Son Of Sleng Teng — a beast of of a tune, lumbering and snuffling, one-of-a-kind — bleeping, buzzing, knocking, dripping, reverberating… and unresolved in nine minutes.

Fired-up, originary African pop, conjuring the Congolese rumba from imported Latin 78s — with thumb pianos, kazoos, banjos, bottles, violins, and irresistible little songs about pimps, dope, clubbing, sex, death.

‘Jesus fucking shit! These jamz claw so hard at the tatties below methinks the Lord misnamed them, having intended to say trembling BALLS’ (Will Oldham). ‘My kind of band… Highly recommended’ (Joe Boyd).

‘brilliant… concise, deeply romantic, totally original ****’ (Mojo); ‘freewheeling and delightfully quirky ****’ (The Guardian); ‘CD Of The Week… terrific’ (The Observer); ‘like nobody ****’ (Sunday Times).

A terrific, bountiful seasonal single — with Bonnie Prince Billy in his cups on one side, and Mike Heron from The Incredible String Band on the other, with a Boxing Day ghost story. Beautifully sleeved, limited.

‘New levels of excellence… a poetic incantation of British identity far brighter than Michael Gove’s proposed GCSE history syllabus *****’ (The Sunday Times). ‘Magnificent ****’ (The Guardian).

Forgotten masterpieces, out-of-this-world improvisations from the 1920s; and dazzling commissions by Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance and co. ‘Dextrous, frenzied, fearless… awesome’ (Plan B).

Two sick techno killers, stalking the perimeters of noise; and generous excerpts from a soundtrack to Dreyer’s Vampyr, with Sun Ra in its marrow, alternately driving and motorik, off-the-wall, lost in space.

Honest Jon’s presents Mark Ernestus from Rhythm And Sound spinning 45s alongside DJ Pete from Substance and Scion Versions, with a live set from Sleeparchive.

‘Terry Hall has returned with his best work in decades… a daring, thoughtful set’ (The Guardian); ‘***** the real message lies in the boldness of its musical vision… world music album of the year’ (The Times).
‘Recorded as Blair and Bush were conspiring to strike fear and loathing into the region responsible for these grooves, it’s every bit as topical as Ghost Town, as eerie as War Crimes’ (Time Out).

Nominally this is a collaboration between Terry Hall and Mushtaq, once of British-Asian pioneers Fun-Da-Mental — but ‘everybody we worked with had a story to tell,’ recalls Terry Hall, ‘and their stories became part of the record. We were blessed with the range of people we found.’ A Tunisian singer, a Syrian flautist, an Egyptian who had settled in Iraq, a twelve-year old Lebanese girl, a blind Algerian rapper from Paris, a choir of Polish gypsy refugees brought in from a social club in Leytonstone, the clarinettist who recorded the original Pink Panther theme; singers in Hebrew, English, Arabic, Romany. ‘Everybody had a sense of something in common in their minority and oppression and struggle. In the end, it felt more like we were editing a film than making a record.’
A year in development, the album is also a powerful reflection of the time in which it was made and the storm that was gathering: Bush and Blair were intent on Armageddon in Iraq; in the refugee camps on the West Bank, atrocities were being committed on a daily basis; closer to home, sections of the British media used the fear of terrorism to whip up a hate-fuelled campaign against asylum seekers and other minorities pushed to the margins of society.
‘What was going on as we were making the record seemed to make it more and more political. We had something to say, but we wanted to avoid being worthy or preaching and keep the words to a minimum.’