No-shame housey Tsonga-disco and hands-in-the-air rave banged out on Korgs and Ataris in 1994 South Africa. It sold tons, rocking stadiums from Liberia and Sierra Leone to Namibia and Mozambique.

Trá Pháidín are a nine-piece from Conamara, Galway, a wild coastal region of West Ireland, where Gaeilge remains the first language. They make a joyful noise — a unique and unpredictable blend of traditional Irish folk, post-rock, jazz, and Dadaist absurdity. 
Their album An 424 is a freewheeling, dialectical consideration of the 424 bus route and its passengers, passing up and down the coastline from the Gaeltacht into anglophone Ireland, and vice versa, and taking in wondrous locations like Cuan na Gaillimhe / Galway Bay, An Bhoirinn / the Burren, na hOileáin Árann / the Arann Islands, Aillte an Mhothair / the Cliffs of Moher, Portach Mhaigh Cuilinn / the bogs of Maigh Cuilinn, Bóthar Loch an Iolra / Eagle lake road, Cuan Casla / Casla Harbour, Cuan an Fhir Mhóir / Greatman’s Bay, Cnoc Mordáin / Mordáin hill, Sléibhte Mhám Toirc / the Maamturk Mountains, Na Beanna Beola / the twelve pins…
‘This is a topic you could write a PhD about (and maybe someone already has),’ says the band. ‘But if you are someone who grew up or lives in this region, you have a particular understanding at this stage of how complicated Gaelic psyche is and the kind of spectrum of identity along bóthar Choise Fharraige. With the landscape in mind, this bus journey is a great meditation on the various topics of life.’
Listen out for flights of wild improvisation filled with brass, woodwinds, harp, and fiddles… and hard-nosed grooves.

Ray Barney’s label is the bees knees in raw, stripped Chicago house music. From Duane And Co’s breakthrough and killer classics from the likes of young Lil Louis, through to the first shoots of ghetto house.

‘Documenting a 2023 West Coast tour, this double LP goes deep. On 2023-05-12 Set II, the rhythm section gives Collier plenty of space to develop long, soulful saxophone lines that are full of invention and dynamic variation, culminating in a climax of squawking multi phonics, woody bass runs and multi-directional drumming. Best of all is a riveting set dedicated to Don Cherry, where Collier vocalises freely through a megaphone, setting off its alarm at key points’ (The Wire).

Stuffed with staggering selections, comprising maybe our favourite compilation in this mind-boggling series. Deep, hypnotic, mystical music, often a bit wasted; featuring several extended 12” and 10” mixes, sparkling with electronic effects. Almighty sides like George Dudley’s Gates Of Zion and Lloyd Robinson and Devon Russell’s effervescently jazzy Push Push, sublimely channelling Curtis.
It’s a must.

‘A psychedelic voyage into the afterlife’, with Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat… The 4LP set adds the instrumentals, all on 180g vinyl in printed inner sleeves, outer sleeves and rigid box and lid, with a download code card.

Cosmic jazz excursions on saxophone, flute, electric keys, synths and drums.
Supple, deep and spacious; sparklingly dubwise; intensely percussive.

‘One thing is certain about a Sun Ra performance: You never know what to expect. Last week at the Chicago Jazz Festival, he presented a huge troupe of musicians, dancers and acrobats in a veritable circus of improvisation’ (John Litweiler, Chicago Tribune, September 9, 1988).
The entire show as originally broadcast by National Public Radio in the same year.

Nineteen, hip-hoppin, be-boppin capsules of funk, conjured and distilled from a year’s worth of weekly shows by the drummer, in a reclaimed bank vault in the heart of Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.
Jazz improvisation — but compact, to-the-point and organic as a mosquiter’s tweeter — dipped in krautrock, d&b, house and B-boy science. Featuring the brilliant vibes playing of Justefan, and local luminaries like Jeff Parker from Tortoise and De’Sean Jones from Underground Resistance.
Warmly recommended.

You can hear their stage experience in ‘the sizzle and swing of the percussive highlights here, programmed with a serious depth and wriggle that reflect both an extension of and return to form. Considerations of the machine-human interface, neurological realities and physical probabilities dominate. But these tracks are economical and precise, glittering with emotional depth and cinematic effects. The album’s core, a three-act movement of symphonic uncertainty and revelation, marks one of the pair’s most evocative compositions in a career full of them.’