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For his third album on Blue Note, Big John Patton decided to expand his band to quintet. Retaining the services of his longtime colleagues, guitarist Grant Green and drummer Ben Dixon, he hired tenor saxophonist Fred Jackson (who also played on the previous work "Along Came John") and trumpeter Richard Williams. – All Music

.gif have earned critical comparison to the likes of Bjork, Yukimi Nagano, The xx and Portishead, but the illustrious pair have managed to retain a fresh and unique dynamic to their chimerical sound, one that proved so compelling that the pair began filling a void of their own making within the Singaporean music scene. 

Following the acclaim of their past releases, .gif's sophomore LP HAIL NOTHING still showcases the haunting vocals, deft lyricism and obsidian production that has become their distinctive sound. The album is named after a line in Ernest Hemingway' s A Clean Well Lighted Place - "Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee." 

The duo digs deeper on HAIL NOTHING; an ode to chaos and nothingness, a love song to the void. Expanding on their synth-driven soundscapes, haunting vocals and poignant lyrics, the album also features guests Bani Haykal and Usaama Minhas. 

The Analog Vault is supremely honoured to be working with .gif for their first-ever vinyl release on TAV Records. 

From Shrine to Stax, Isaac Hayes to Gloria Ann Taylor, The Mad Lads to The Staples Singers, Detroit to Atlanta, Kendrick to Pusha-T, Dale Warren’s singular voice is the lone constant. Beneath the ethereal beauty of his productions was a genius crippled by his unbridled id. His ever-evolving 24-Carat Black project spanned the ’70s, producing a masterpiece and an unfinished follow up. Discovered in a storage space were Warren’s 1980s demos cut with grown n’ sexy divas Princess Hearn, Vicki Gray, and LaRhonda LeGette right before his untimely death at the age of 50. III is an unfinished symphony that peels away the final layer of Dale Warren’s mysterious oeuvre. – Numero Group

Funk covers of "I Shot the Sheriff" (Bob Marley), "Low down" (Boz Scaggs), "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" (Leo Sayer) and many more. Official Release from Hong Kong.

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In spite of the noisy aura it's drawn around itself, there's not much mystery to A Place To Bury Strangers. The New York band has been dishing out slight variations on the same sonic blitzkrieg since its self-titled 2007 debut; the only thing that's changed is the fine tuning. On the group's fourth album, Transfixiation, all of APTBS' trademarks are in evidence. Deadpan vocals float through apocalyptic static. The volume bleeds out. Cacophony reigns. - NPR

Beats, Rhymes and Life is the fourth album of the hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Released in 1996, it followed three years after the highly regarded and successful Midnight Marauders. This album is a departure from the joyful, positive vibe of the earlier albums and is regarded as the group's darkest album in content.

It reached number-one on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B Albums charts. – Wiki

“"Damn, we ain't prophets/And if you think so, you need to stop it." A Tribe Called Quest launch that fiery verbal projectile in "Get a Hold," a slamming, paradox-driven track from the group's near-flawless fourth album, Beats, Rhymes and Life. A denial that serves as confirmation, the couplet snaps and frames the essence of this collection: selfless social commentary sneaked in between immodest claims to greatness.” – Rolling Stone

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A-F-R-O is a breakthrough artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, who was first discovered by legendary rapper, R.A. The Rugged Man. Marco Polo is a Brooklyn based producer, raised in Toronto, Canada, who has produced music for artists such as Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch, Boot Camp Clik, Royce Da 5’9 & more.

Compiled and produced by Nick Gold, who played a key role in the Buena Vista Social Club project, this is another reminder of Cuba’s extraordinary musical history. Abelardo Barroso died in 1972, but he is still a hero both in Latin America and west Africa. Like many Buena Vista stars, he had an uneven career, with fame followed by hard times and then further success. He was a celebrity in the 1920s and 30s, but by the 50s he was busking outside the flash nightclubs of pre-revolutionary Havana, before being rediscovered by Rolando Valdés of the massively popular Orquesta Sensación. These remastered recordings from the mid-50s sound almost uncannily contemporary, with Barroso’s distinctive, slightly harsh-edged vocals matched against a gently driving, rhythmic band featuring fine flute solos from arranger Juan Pablo Miranda on Cuban standards that include the slinky Bruca Maniguá (later covered by Buena Vista’s Ibrahim Ferrer) and El Manisero. - The Guardian

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. are known for way-far-out space rock. ‘Wandering The Outer Space’ is no exception. Acid Mothers Temples ‘Wandering The Outer Space’ is a sonic liquid light kaleidoscope swirling and fusing rock, jazz, drone, chanting, and electronic music with heavy psychedelic influence. It is not accurate to refer to this music by any of the generic terms listed above. Acid Mothers Temple creates a new sound that is distinctively Acid Mothers Temple. They slip between the cracks of conventional harmony and musical structure, intentionally warping any familiar sound. The opening track ‘Anthem Of The Outer Space’ traverses a dynamic and broad sonic territory it covers traditional bouzouki, blow-out guitars, mantric chanting, comic-ambient drone, and ends with a surprise pop vocal melody. ‘Forsaken Moonman’ is traditional Acid Mothers Temple with a slow build to whaling intergalactic noise-guitar solos, high-frequency synth and fast rhythms echoing across the threshold of space-time.

Acid Mothers Temple has a long winding history beginning in the 1990s with many variations such as Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O, Acid Mothers Guru Guru, Acid Mother Temple SWR, and many more. The one constant is the visionary guitarist, producer, master of sound, Makoto Kawabata. Kawabata says the music he creates is based on recreating extraterrestrial signals. The entire aesthetic has always revolved around U.F.O.s and communication with the universe, making them true space rockers.–The Psych Rock

A suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion.

Right from Hazyville, Actress’s music has been deeply marked by London’s rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh, R.I.P heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. 2-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments.

R.I.P underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Basic Channel, Burial and Aphex Twin. But the way he engages with electronic sound from first principles, realising his own self-contained sonic worlds, hints at less obvious kinships outside the dance music fraternity, with pioneers of homebrewed sound experiments such as Cabaret Voltaire, Pan Sonic and Oval. It moves the body but the sounds also tap into to something more intangible inside you; you dance, but also ‘slip/drift into another realm, probably without even realising.’ – Honest Jon’s Records

“Darren Cunningham is a dance producer who references extroverted, populist music to create a meditative, introverted, immersive experience.…It's not the sound that makes the music, though, but the structure of it. R.I.P. is a deliberately uncoordinated album. Rhythms, basslines, and melodies slip in and out of line with each other. Comparatively straightforward, house-oriented tracks like "Shadow From Tartarus" are situated next to murk and ambience like "Tree of Knowledge". The emphasis here, though, is on "comparative": Even R.I.P.'s steady 4/4 tracks sound grimy and deconstructed. But there's something almost flirtatious in the way he lets the sounds worm around in the dark, looking to hook up with something firm. When they do, it's both mechanical and mystical, like watching a sculpture cut from raw stone.” – Pitchfork

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Adam Page - Tenor Saxophone, Piano on 'Purple'

Rachel Johnston - Cello

James Brown - Guitar

Brenton Foster - Piano

Ross McHenry - Bass

Intimate and somber LP with a beauty that emits from each song. Perfect for those late-night evening listening sessions - Similar to the sound of the label ECM with its crisp recording along with the gentleness known in some of the releases on the label. Check it out!

Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 (!) in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospective sound considering the year the album was recorded.

Adele and her band pull it off right from the start as if it had been 1966 and it was time for a revolution to shake the dust from the old time jazz. In a perfect way she mixes classic American vocal jazz elements with playful and more free passages, Latin music and tribal African sounds in the lengthy and quite rhythm oriented “Man From Tanganyika” and makes the title track start with a mystical “Allahu akbar“ chant while it turns more and more into a dark and gloomy song with something like a psychedelic edge reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders on his early works. Wild rhythms from drums, percussions with tons of bells and chimes weave a thick groove carpet and conjure a magical atmosphere. Those jazz aficionados who love the mid 60s John Coltrane, his sidekick Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane will go crazy for this album. - Light In The Attic

In Spades is the eighth studio album by American alternative rock band The Afghan Whigs, released on May 5, 2017 on Sub Pop Records. - Wiki

“Cleromancy” isn’t a word one normally finds in rock lyrics. Then again, In Spades – the forthcoming album by The Afghan Whigs, from which the new song “Oriole” hails – is defined only by its own mystical inner logic. The term means to divine, in a supernatural manner, a prediction of destiny from the random casting of lots: the throwing of dice, picking a card from a deck. From its evocative cover art to the troubled spirits haunting its halls, In Spades casts a spell that challenges the listener to unpack its dark metaphors and spectral imagery. – Sub Pop

“As ever, Dulli spends the majority of In Spades teetering on that shaky precipice where romance turns to rancor, and pillow talk leads to restraining orders. But like a master genre filmmaker, he’s always got a couple of new tricks up his sleeves to keep us on our toes. “Birdland” honors his tradition for slow-burning, cinematicscene-setters, but rather than gently immerse us into his nocturnal netherworld, we’re pushed right in by staccato shocks of harmonium and operatic vocal gasps, like strobe-lit flickers of an image that take you a few moments to process into a fluid moving picture. “We’re coming alive in the cold,” Dulli declares, like a beast reawakened and ready to do damage once again.

In Spades clocks in at just 10 songs in 36 minutes, but feels as expansive and substantial as a double-album statement. And that’s thanks in large part to coolly paced, multi-sectional songs like “Arabian Heights” and “Light As a Feather,” where Dulli masterfully ratchets up the tension before unleashing his fevered howl at just the right moment (while reminding us that the Whigs are the rare rock band that can pull liberally from ’70s Blaxploitation funk without sounding like they’re making a jokey porno soundtrack).” – Pitchfork

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Jamal Moss, aka Hieroglyphic Being, returns for a new second album on Soul Jazz Records, after last year’s debut The Acid Documents. this time under the name Africans with Mainframes.

Hieroglyphic Being and fellow Chicago producer Noleian Reusse have been releasing music under the name Africans with Mainframes for over 15 years now, ever since their debut on Hieroglyphic Being’s own Mathematics Recordings label in 2005. ‘K.M.T.’ is the debut album from the group, a collage of apocalyptic Chicago acid meets industrial and transcendental post-house machine funk.

Both intense and unique, the album of forward-thinking, experimental, boundary-pushing Afro-futurist electronic music shows why Hieroglyphic Being is regarded as one of the most serious purveyors of experimental black music today. You can't stop the prophet! – Sounds of the Universe

“Devastating album of epic dancefloor rituals and visions from Jamal Moss (Hieroglyphic Being) and Noleian Reusse in their prized Africans With Mainframes guise, amounting to their most substantial and impressive collection.” – Boomkat

“…Working with fellow producer Noleian Reusse as Africans With Mainframes, [DJ and producer] Jamal Moss swings from Windy City jazz to Chicago acid at its most caustic. While the duo have released a slew of 12”s dating back to 2001, K.M.T. is their first full-length. Kemetic Modulating Textures is eight tracks of Moss and Reusse at their most unrelenting and there’s a coarseness to every texture that at times might make you mistakenly think it was just slapped together. Yet the frequent references to Egyptology (Googling each track title reveals a profound knowledge of prehistoric culture) suggest a greater thought at work, and if you manage to survive the bruising BPMs of the album's first half, it becomes mesmerizing.

Opener “Anachronistic” sets the table for what lies ahead: everything in the red, a snare fill stumbling and slipping across the grid, the 808’s edges increasingly fuzzy with distortion. And then just when it verges on pure noise, that telltale acid squiggle worms through and the snare coheres into a visceral thrill.

Last year, Moss explained his first encounter with Sun Ra’s music as a shock to the system: “His music wasn’t about making sense: it was just about receiving these transmissions, this knowledge.” It’s a lesson that Moss carries forward with K.M.T., suggesting that while some of his tracks might scan as scrambled transmissions, continued exposure reveals a profound signal beneath the noise.” – Pitchfork

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Afrodesia may come on like another dusted down gem from those dedicated detectives at Best, but it is in fact a modern construction from the talented studio trysts of Mystic Jungle and Whodamanny from the Periodica camp. These Italian producers have more than proved their knack for crafting sublime, honey-smooth jams with a nod to the golden studio era of the 70s and 80s, and they're more than up to the task on this killer 12" of heavy funking jams with a dose of boogie and a nod to Ivory Coast disco. It's quite simply perfection, rendered with love and attention to detail, but utterly natural in its feel and flavour. - Bandcamp

“Afterglow is the music moniker for local fashion retailer HOAX's owner Julian. Having been involved in the local music scene for years as a guitarist and programmer, Julian has since found his muse in black music. Driven by this newfound passion, his recent music ambitions sees him going back to sounds he grew up with such as Michael Jackson and Prince, to the disco funk of the 70s and 80s, and the "Free Soul" series of Japanese compilations. "Different Light" is Afterglow's debut album, a music amalgam that takes cues from 80's synth-funk/boogie, electro from Street Sounds, r&b from Tabu, fusion from Herbie Hancock, to the sound of city pop greats such as Toshiki Kadomatsu, Tetsuji Hayashi, and Tatsurō Yamashita. A marriage of synths, thumping basslines, and drum machine grooves, the album also features the vocals of both SOPHY Wong and Yeung Tung. In contrast to what one might expect out of a vaporware aesthetic, the result is rather a pop music infused exploration of funk's past and future.” – Bandcamp

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In the early 1980s, Ahmed Malek was already in his 50s, when he discovered synthesizers and electronic music for himself and started to experiment with sounds. None of it was ever released but we got a huge box of master tapes from his family and we're happy to present this different side of Ahmed Malek's music. It was compiled and co-produced by Flako, a fan of early electronic and synth music. This is not a remix album though, Flako's aim was to create an album out of 2 hours of material that sounds like it might have if Mr. Malek would have finished it himself before of his death. Fully approved by the artists family. - Habibi Funk

Classic Boombap - Lovers of Pete Rock right up to Jay Dee, this album is for you. True to the style and a homage to that classic sampling vibe we all love about the 90s boom-bap. Do yourself a favour and check this out!

Ajate is a Japanese band who plays a unique blend of afro-groove dance music mixed with Japanese traditional festival music called "Ohayashi". Formed in 2011 by the band-leader John Imaeda, Ajate consists of 10 Japanese musicians.

Another unique feature of the band is the use of hand-made bamboo instruments as well as traditional Japanese percussion. The "Jahte" is a bamboo-made xylophone or balafon with a piezo pick-up mic attached to each key, connected to a pre-amplifier to obtain a loud sound and to add some touch of dirty distortion to its warm and natural acoustic sonority. The "Piechiku" is also a bamboo-made string instrument inspired by the west-African "Ngoni" or Moroccan "Guembri" instruments. The Piechiku uses strings of the Japanese traditional "Shamisen". This instrument is also played through a pre-amplifier and John sometimes adds some wah-wah effect to it. All these bamboo instruments are designed, made and named by John Imaeda himself.

On Alo you will also be amazed by the exceptional sound of the Japanese Shinofue flute, which was not on the previous Abrada LP.

Now, add to this unique sound some well-crafted Japanese female and male singing and you get a killer mix of Afro-Funk flavored grooves with traditional Japanese music! – Bandcamp

Roughly translating to "dinner is ready," the double-LP was recorded with Yellow Magic Orchestra and originally coproduced with Ryuichi Sakamoto across Tokyo and Los Angeles. The 14-track album showcases Yano's move away from her pop and jazz funk origins towards a synth pop sound. Akiko Yano is a Japanese pop and jazz musician and a longtime YMO affiliate. This reissue follows two Yano albums rereleased on Wewantsounds this year, Japanese Girl and Iroha Ni Kompeito. – Resident Advisor

A Japanese rarity from 1984, Benkei is a unique jazz funk session that sees the drummer Akira Toyoda working with a group that features Joe Lovano on sax, Peter Madsen on piano and Dean Johnson on bass. This early document showcases the beginning of Lovano’s career as a fine jazz player as well as being an excellent testimony of the vibrant Japanese jazz scene of the mid-80s that drew many American players to visit the Land of the Rising Sun.

180 gram reissue of Al Campbell's debut album from 1977. Produced by Phil Pratt (Star Wars Dub) and featuring Ansel Collins, Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Earl Smith and more.

Roots Reggae / Lovers Rock - Classic Here!

An eclectic album that is sure to pique anyone’s interest. Produced by Alan Parker and Alan Hawkshaw, who is perhaps best-known for composing “The Champ”, which has been widely sampled and emulated by hip hop artists. Cool orchestral funk from the 70s on this LP!

 Vibrations is the second album released by American free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler’s quartet, featuring Don Cherry, Gary Peacock and Sonny Murray. The album was recorded in Copenhagen in September of 1964. Originally issued by the Freedom label, it also been released under an alternate title, Ghosts. The recordings were remastered for an audiophile-grade pressing on 180gram vinyl at Pallas in Germany. – ORG Music 

Broadcast from SWR and recorded at the legendary 1967 Free Jazz Meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany this is a collection of four different performances by different line-ups, featuring big names in the European free jazz 60s scene of the time along such top players as Don Cherry, Albery Mangelsdorff, Marion Brown and Evan Parker. – Linear Notes

With our eyes firmly fixed on the far horizon we want the new. We want what’s next. We not only want the new, we demand it. We’ve boiled our lives down to frantically seeking out what’s the latest, what’s right around the next corner that we can grasp onto before discarding it by the wayside for the next thing, the latest stuff, the hottest new trend just beyond our reach. I bet there are more than a few out there who can barely tolerate leftovers from last night’s dinner. 

I’m here to remind you that there are some things worth revisiting. I’m not talking about some somber commemorations of old disasters or old political scandals or the hairstyles of your youth. I am, of course, referring to a collection of songs, and not just any collection, but a powerhouse recording by the father of desert blues Ali Farka Toure and the recording The Source.

Originally put out in 1992 and the first recording for the Malian guitarist with his band Group Asco, The Source wasn’t Mr. Toure’s merry-go-round or his first recording. Recordings on Sonafric like Ali Toure Farka and Biennale and the Sonodisc/Esperance recordings Ali Farka Toure (Red) and Ali Farka Toure (Green) appeared before The Source. It was following the release of The River on the label World Circuit, where The Source bubbles up from the earth and Mr. Toure takes listeners on musical landscapes like Talking Timbuktu with Ry Cooder, Niafunke, Mississippi to Mali with Corey Harris, In the Heart of the Moon with Toumani Diabate and Ry Cooder, Savane and Ali and Toumani. Mr. Toure showed us The Source and we all listened. 

As luck would have it, World Circuit has just announced the release of a special edition of The Source. Re-mixed, remastered from the original tapes, The Source is now out for the first time on vinyl with a 28-page color booklet. This is the kind of re-issue you all want. This is where going back is all just so very fine. – World Music Central

From a self-taught musician exploring his Nubian people’s musical roots to a professional, successfully leading his various bands into new, vibrant, international pop territory – Ali Hassan Kuban became an international star when his music finally went global in the 1980s.

When precisely Ali Hassan Kuban’s legendary recordings, released internationally by Piranha in 1988, were made, nobody knows any more. What we do know, recordings had taken place at Delta Sound S.A. in Cairo – with the orchestra’s entire line-up circled around the only working microphone at hand. The tracks had been travelling in the Arab world on two audio-cassettes afterwards and accompanied his rise from a local superstar to a musical innovator of new, vibrant, international Pop.

Ancient Nubian melodies played on a background of pulsating Western beats and sounds that draw from American jazz and international pop – Ali Hassan Kuban served as one of the founding fathers of the musical breed which crushed the gates between the Global underground and Western pop: the old and the new! The weddings and the concert hall! The Orient and the Occident! - Bandcamp