‘Fourteen tracks of irresistible psych-spiked cumbia and Link Wray guitar from the edge of the Peruvian jungle’ (Uncut).
‘Rambunctious Peruvian Cumbia Amazonica … The unpredictable and unrestrained sound that locals lovingly called ‘llullampeo’ can be heard in all its glory in Gitanita’ (Sounds And Colours).
Stone classic Alice. Turiya And Ramakrishna is a gorgeous piano blues; otherwise she is joined by Joe Henderson and Pharoah Sanders, Ron Carter and Ben Riley.
‘a terrific soca compilation… a vital contemporary follow-up to London Is the Place for Me’, Village Voice; ‘*****, Compilation Of The Month’, Touch; ‘chaotic and compelling… an ace selection’, Time Out.
Modern Nigerian music starts here.
‘*****’, Mojo; ‘these songs leap out of the past like madeleines soaked in palm wine’, The Observer; ‘impeccably curated and packaged’, The Wire.
‘***** beautiful, deeply affecting… hard to beat as the year’s most worthwhile reissue’, The Guardian; ‘magnificent… wonderfully austere’, Time Out.
Chocka with scorchers.
Isaac Hayes, Booker T, Stevie Wonder, James Brown are in the house.
Some of the previously unreleased cuts are amazing, like the Jackie Mittoo spaghetti, The Sharks’ dread techno.
A blistering selection, with the series’ signature mixture of classic hits and recovered treasure.
Dazzling music from 1969, way ahead of its time, by a nonet with Woody Shaw and Dizzy Reece on trumpets, Joe Farrell on reeds, woodwinds, and English horn, Bob Northern on French horn, Howard Johnson on tuba and bass clarinet, Ron Carter on bass. Fresh from Bitches Brew, Lenny White plays drums at just his second recording session; trombonist Julian Priester is a few months away from Mwandishi.
Sideways establishes Hill’s signature twist on Monk and Bud Powell, with its angular, sinewy restlessness, and Caribbean tang. The horns are crossly careering. The evocative title cut has classical, cinematic manners, but in the service of East of the River Nile mysticism. Plantation Bag is magnificent, delirious, epic funk, with Lenny White channelling Clyde Stubblefied, and Ron Carter dug in deep. Noon Tide tears way further eastwards, in the same urgent cohort as classics like Yusef Lateef’s Chang, Chang, Chang and Pete La Roca’s Dancing Girls. Cascade is precisely skittering and eruptive, with wonderful trumpet-playing. Yesterday’s Tomorrow is playful, both jaunty and rueful, undecided, to close.
The arrangements throughout are imperious; the playing is uniformly superb. “We had rehearsal time and a lot of studio time. Some of those songs, we did take 45 or take 50. We played them over and over and over, till we got a complete take just right.’‘
Knockout.
‘*****’, The Independent; ‘captivating… Q Recommends’; ‘there is no end of exhilarating music on this beguiling album’, The Sunday Times; ‘full of heartstopping musical twists and turns’, The Beat.
‘*****’, The Times, Independent On Sunday, Daily Telegraph, What’s On, Evening Standard, The Independent. ‘Marvellous pop — catchy, fun, young, effortless’, The Times; ‘one of the delights of the age’, Songlines.