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The two-piece band’s journey to commercial and critical superstardom stretches back into the early years of last decade, including a plethora of breakthroughs and milestones along the way. No disrespect to bluesy garage rock debut The Big Come Up, but sophomore LP Thickfreakness, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last month, is where The Black Keys first fully harnessed the subversive, raucous verve that underpins their most liberated and puissant cuts. Raw, densely textured, and tightly configured to fundamental blues paradigms, Thickfreakness revives Delta Blues with a scabrous laxity that‘s rooted not in the cotton fields of the South but in the decrepit unmanned factories of the deindustrialized Midwest. Though the band indisputably tweaked and modified their sound over the years this recalcitrant rejection of rustbelt paralysis serves as the backbone for their subsequent five offering, from their 2004 follow-up Rubbery Factory to 2010’s platinum polished Brothers and 2011’s Grammy-adorned, El Camino.

Building upon but never merely appropriating the discontent of 20th century Delta Blues, Thickfreakness applies traditional blues reflexes to the modern day daemons of social alienation, vocational mediocrity, and the urban grind. – Consequence of Sound

Three emotional years in the making, Be With and Efficient Space finally present Steve Hiett’s Girls In The Grass. Pressed alongside the long awaited reissue of his one-shot masterpiece Down On The Road By The Beach, these ten balearic soul instrumentals are of equal necessity; unrivalled beauty rescued from the fashion photographer-guitarist’s Paris Tapes (1986-1997).

While recordings unintended for release should often be approached with caution, this is a rare case of unheard material being assembled as an indispensable and coherent piece. Girls In The Grass is something super special. The light and shadow that defines Hiett’s music is arguably more compelling here. It speaks to us in a language that feels profound, yet entirely comforting and familiar.

Girls In The Grass reintroduces Hiett’s languid electric blues boogie, crafted on Saturday afternoons with fellow art director Simon Kentish. Kentish would cook, pour some wine and then utilise his arsenal of technology. He’d dial up a chugging rhythm, together with some ambient pads or keyboard textures, and anchor the weightless gauze of Hiett’s six-stringed touch. - Effecient Space

Possibly the greatest link between jazz/blues and rock and roll is Big Joe turner. A Kansas City native, Turner gained acclaim with Count Basie in New York. He collaborated with pianist Pete Johnson developing the boogie-woogie genre. Turner continued to play with jazz greats like Art Tatum. His exchanges or shouting at instrumentalists generated an indelible trademark.

When he signed with Atlantic Records in the early ‘50s, a legend was born. Many people consider Turner’s “Shake Rattle And Roll” to be the song that launched rock and roll (despite more popular versions from Bill Haley and Elvis Presley). He has been inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

The Boss Of The Blues represents Turner’s debut with Atlantic Records in 1956. The title description is Joe Turner Sings Kansas City Jazz. That is exactly what the crux of this album is….the connection between blues and the singer’s Kansas City jazz roots. With a stellar ensemble (including piano, trombone, saxophones and trumpet) Turner deftly executes singing prowess and agility, with brilliant arrangements by Ernie Wilkins.

Classic post bop blues-jazz straight from 1962, beautifully remastered for today.

The incomparable and profoundly influential pianist/singer-songwriter Mose Allison – who’s inspired everyone from Georgie Fame, The Who and The Clash to Van Morrison and Pixies – developed his own unique, idiosyncratic style that melded an ironic sense of wit and humour with country-blues inflections and a bebop-esque vocabulary. Besides cool playing and his uniquely smoky singing, has great taste in material. "Hey Good Lookin'" fits right in with revisited versions of "I Love the Life I Live", "I Ain't Got Nobody" and "Baby Please Don't Go", complete with what the singer himself calls his distinctive 'involuntary groan' during the piano solo. Teo Macero's intimate production makes it feel like you're right there in the studio. - hhv

Over Under Away - Volume I is the first compilation LP from Melbourne independent label ​Hopestreet Recordings and is released to celebrate their 10th anniversary.

It features 10 tracks from Hopestreet’s first generation of artists: psych-Bollywood SciFi orchestra ​The Bombay Royale​, cinematica pioneers ​The Cactus Channel​, soul queen ​Emma Donovan and her mighty band ​The Putbacks ​and dusty country soul from ​The Meltdown, ​plus ​a couple of rarely heard gems, an afrobeat rap cut by One Sixth​ and a Marvin Gaye inspired environmental panic anthem by ​Zillanova feat. Cisco Tavares​.

Over Under Away is the label’s creation story. The material in Volume I was created in Hopestreet’s infancy, when the same people played in all the bands, and everyone who worked in the office was also making the records. If a compilation put together out of nine different albums sounds unusually cohesive, it’s because the same people performed, wrote and produced all the songs. Putbacks guitarist Tom Martin leads the charge, appearing on 8 out of 10 cuts. All production and engineering duties were shared by label founders Bob Knob and Tristan Ludowyk. These days are past, but the aim of Over Under Away - Volume I is to represent the seed that grew into the label as it is today.

The compilation takes its name from a song on ​Emma Donovan & The Putbacks’ 2014 album ​Dawn​. Over Under Away is a story of struggle, perseverance and, above all else, patience. About growing from small beginnings to “sing and shout and talk up loud.” Hopestreet began as a recording experiment, an afternoon goof between friends in a decrepit factory in Brunswick. The only ingredients were an Otari tape machine, some decent musicians and little bit of goodwill. When the label started, 7a Hope Street was surrounded by a desert of vacant industrial property. Now it’s surrounded by gleaming new apartment complexes. In that moment between decay and gentrification a little magic happened. Now the label, like it’s surroundings continues to evolve, but this compilation celebrates that fleeting point in time and everything that grew from there. - Bandcamp

 Harrold has come through with a recording that is altogether more distinctive and contemporary, one that seems to reflect his range of musical interests. It contains some jazz, to be sure, but a dozen tracks feature vocals of one kind or another on eight tracks: found speech (a voicemail from the leader's mom), mock news reports, singing, and rapping. The purely instrumental tracks are not swinging or standards but, rather, atmospheric groove tunes of various stripes that act as a tacked-on echo ("Lullaby"), interlude ("Ethereal Souls"), or coda ("Bubba Rides Again"). 

The stylistic range is wide, though all the music is generally in the realm of soul and hip-hop. For example, "Stay This Way" begins as a kind of slow jam romance tune, except Bilal sings it with a wide range of idiosyncrasy, from a whisper to a snarl — accompanied by the leader's heraldic trumpet but also by some distorted organ. Then, boom, incomes Chris Dave on drums playing a super-hip-hop groove as Bilal plays call-and-response with background vocalists. Rapper Big K.R.I.T. takes a laid-back verse in the middle, and the tune goes out on Harrold riding above the groove, which is somehow slick and quirky at the same time. It is marvelous and unlike just about anything. - Pop Matters