Created in collaboration with Walter Branchi from the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, this soundtrack to Mino Guerrini’s 1968 film is among the most strikingly experimental of all Macchi’s music for cinema. A suspenseful, jet-propelled fresh mix of
psychedelia, jazz, and improv, threaded with beautiful melodies.
The first time out; from the master tapes.

Half-price this weekend.

A stunning survey of the 1970s heyday of this great Japanese singer and countercultural icon.
Deep-indigo, dead-of-night enka, folk and blues, inhaling Billie Holiday and Nina Simone down to the bone.
A traditional waltz abuts Nico-style incantation; defamiliarised versions of Oscar Brown Jr and Bessie Smith collide with big-band experiments alongside Shuji Terayama; a sitar-led psychedelic wig-out runs into a killer excursion in modal, spiritual jazz.
Existentialism and noir, mystery and allure, hurt and hauteur.
With excellent notes by Alan Cummings and the fabulous photographs of Hitoshi Jin Tamura.
Hotly recommended.

By themselves on the first record; for the second, joined by Evan Parker and Byron Wallen, harpist Tori Handsley and tabla player Sarathy Korwar, and drummer Yussef Dayes. Both sessions were recorded completely live, straight to tape, consolidating the ‘incandescent immediacy’ of the playing. The duo’s ‘soulful tenor sax sermons plus earthily funky drumming, fusing jazz, hip-hop and grime… winningly mix dark, classic Coltrane raptures, infectious hook-rooted rockers and Sonny Rollins-like calypsos. The larger group sets up thrilling rhythm textures merged from Parker’s seamless soprano lines and a chatter of snare drums and tablas; there are atmospheric guitar-like harp figures, and dramatically spontaneous two-tenor tussles’ (The Guardian).
‘CD of the year so far’ (London Jazz News).

The singer Yu Ji-suk, with a 10-piece ensemble of choir and percussion, performing the Seodo Sori repertoire of the north-west provinces. Nostalgic, dynamic folk songs, rooted in everyday life.

The celebrated three-hour set of this close collaborator of Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamarr.
Two drummers, two bassists, two keyboardists, trumpet, trombone and vocals, plus string orchestra and full choir.
‘The music reflects many inspirations — John Coltrane, Horace Tapscott’s Pan-African People’s Arkestra, Azar Lawrence’s Prestige period, Donald Byrd’s and Eddie Gale’s jazz and choir explorations, Pharoah Sanders’ pan global experiments, Afro-Latin jazz, spiritual soul, and DJ culture… It challenges the cultural conversation about jazz without compromising or pandering’ (AllMusic).

Armenian sacred music from the fifth to nineteenth centuries — chants, hymns and sharakans — in settings for choir and piano.
‘Extraordinarily beautiful… Hamasyan uses the characteristic, Eastern-hued Armenian modes to summon up an ancient world. It’s very different to Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble’s million-selling Officium, but if you like that, you’ll love this’ (The Independent).

The Armenian pianist in a quartet setting, meditating on ancient folk melodies (including a couple of compositions by Komitas), between jazz and ambient.

Representing every Chess artist recording at Muscle Shoals, 1967-69. The likes of Etta James, Irma Thomas, Laura Lee, Bobby Moore and Mitty Collier, in the era of the studio’s second great rhythm section, the Swampers. Plenty of unfamiliar glories, and throwing in three instrumentals by Charles Chalmers and crew.

Three albums recorded on his brother’s farm in Accokeek, Maryland, in the early 70s. Quite different to his previous releases, the music remains raw and basic, but with vocals and acoustic guitars, mandolins, dobros and piano. ‘An organic blend of downhome music… imbued with a primitive spirituality. There is an unpolished, spontaneous feel to the music which sparks it greedily into life, and the Accokeek earth seems to be ground deep into every groove. You can even hear the frogs croaking outside the shack.’

The Shades had freshly peeled away from The Techniques, because besides singing Winston Riley wanted to try producing, and Bruce Ruffin needed room… and this is a gem of a calling card.
Sweetly hopeful, rocking rocksteady — with an undertow of foreboding — which Junior Delgado revisited for Dennis Brown, ten years later.
There’s a killer Marry Me dub on Meditation Dub, judiciously beginning ‘Boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss…’