... LP, Vinyl record album

It's like a dream come true – 13 previously unissued recordings by Roy Ayers, all from the height of his glory years on Polydor! Roy's work from this time is some of our favorite ever – a burning blend of jazz, soul, and funk – handled with impeccable charm, and a level of soul that few other artists of the time ever matched. Roy's genius was strongly documented at the time by a series of excellent Polydor albums – but there was also a heck of a lot of great material that never saw the light of day, and which is every bit as great as the classics that we've come to know and love over the years. Hearing this set is incredible – like upping our already-massive appreciation of Roy's talents, and like finding a lost corner of soul music history that nobody's ever heard before. The tunes are all amazing – a great blend of jazzy soul, mellow soul, and dancefloor groovers – and the package is only the tip of the iceberg, from what we've been told! The full album does a great job to not cross over too much with the 12" singles previously issued in this "Virgin" series – and titles include "What's The T", "I Really Love You", "Sugar", "Mystery Of Love", "Green & Gold", "Brand New Feeling", "I Did It In Seattle", "I Just Wanna Give It Up", "Together Forever", "Boogie Down", "I Am Your Mind", and a great alternate version of "Mystic Voyage"! CD

It's like a dream come true – 13 previously unissued recordings by Roy Ayers, all from the height of his glory years on Polydor! Roy's work from this time is some of our favorite ever – a burning blend of jazz, soul, and funk – handled with impeccable charm, and a level of soul that few other artists of the time ever matched. Roy's genius was strongly documented at the time by a series of excellent Polydor albums – but there was also a heck of a lot of great material that never saw the light of day, and which is every bit as great as the classics that we've come to know and love over the years. Hearing this set is incredible – like upping our already-massive appreciation of Roy's talents, and like finding a lost corner of soul music history that nobody's ever heard before. The tunes are all amazing – a great blend of jazzy soul, mellow soul, and dancefloor groovers – and the package is only the tip of the iceberg, from what we've been told! The full album does a great job to not cross over too much with the 12" singles previously issued in this "Virgin" series – and titles include "What's The T", "I Really Love You", "Sugar", "Mystery Of Love", "Green & Gold", "Brand New Feeling", "I Did It In Seattle", "I Just Wanna Give It Up", "Together Forever", "Boogie Down", "I Am Your Mind", and a great alternate version of "Mystic Voyage"! CD

It's like a dream come true – 13 previously unissued recordings by Roy Ayers, all from the height of his glory years on Polydor! Roy's work from this time is some of our favorite ever – a burning blend of jazz, soul, and funk – handled with impeccable charm, and a level of soul that few other artists of the time ever matched. Roy's genius was strongly documented at the time by a series of excellent Polydor albums – but there was also a heck of a lot of great material that never saw the light of day, and which is every bit as great as the classics that we've come to know and love over the years. Hearing this set is incredible – like upping our already-massive appreciation of Roy's talents, and like finding a lost corner of soul music history that nobody's ever heard before. The tunes are all amazing – a great blend of jazzy soul, mellow soul, and dancefloor groovers – and the package is only the tip of the iceberg, from what we've been told! The full album does a great job to not cross over too much with the 12" singles previously issued in this "Virgin" series – and titles include "What's The T", "I Really Love You", "Sugar", "Mystery Of Love", "Green & Gold", "Brand New Feeling", "I Did It In Seattle", "I Just Wanna Give It Up", "Together Forever", "Boogie Down", "I Am Your Mind", and a great alternate version of "Mystic Voyage"! LP, Vinyl record album

The genius of Roy Ayers knows no end – and as this set of unreleased work from the 70s proves, Roy was always working at top form back in the day – even above and beyond his classic albums from the time! The grooves here are tremendous – funky, soulful, jazzy, and every bit as wonderful as the work that Roy did for his classic albums on Polydor – and in a way, the whole set's even tighter and heavier than any of Roy's full LPs, because it's a distillation of his sound from the time, hand-picked from the vaults with an ear towards the kind of timeless grooves that have been a huge influence on many worlds of music for years! You've never heard any of these tunes before, but we can promise you'll love them every bit as much as Roy's tracks on albums like Coffy, Vibrations, Mystic Voyage, and other classics – and the quality of the set only further pushes our jaw-dropping respect for the man! Titles include "Holiday", "Kwajilori", "I Am Your Mind (part 2)", "Touch Of Class", "Third Time", "Come To Me", "Wide Open", "Funk In The Hole", "Liquid Love", "Tarzan", "Sunshine (demo)", and "I Like The Way You Do It To Me". LP, Vinyl record album

Brilliant later work from Ornette Coleman – quite adventurous stuff, too! By the late 80s, the shock of the new of Ornette's harmolodic sound had worn off enough that majors like CBS/Portrait were more than willing to invest in it – but for every catchy modern groove here, there's a left turn into more subtly daring territory! A few tracks feature Jerry Garcia – "3 Wishes", "Singing In The Shower", and "Desert Player" – and his jazz-folk-psych improv guitar style is a pretty wild match for Ornette and Prime Time. We didn't give those cuts nearly enough credit to over the years! The Garcia-less tracks show Ornette's awareness of hip hop and funky fusion, but he doesn't cop to trends. It's more that he's showing his continuing relevance in the 80s landscape. The group features Denard Coleman on percussion and keys, Calvin Weston on drums, Al MacDowell and Chris Walker on bass, Bern Nix and Charlee Ellerbe on guitars, and Ornette on alto, trumpet and violin. Other tunes include "Happy Hour", "Bourgeois Boogie", and "Spelling The Alphabet". CD

One of the great entries in Duke Ellington's "exotic" albums of the 60s – records that aren't exactly exotica by any stretch of the imagination, but which have musical themes that were inspired by the international travels of the Ellington band at the time! In this case, the locale is the Virgin Islands – where Ellington performed in 1965, and returned home to record this set as a memory of tunes played by the band in St Croix and St Thomas. The core of the set is the initial Virgin Islands suite – made up of four new tunes that include "Island Virgin", "Virgin Jungle", "Fiddler On The Diddle", and "Jungle Kitty" – all nicely rhythmic numbers that explore some fresh themes with especially nice horn solos from the members of the group. Other tracks are older numbers performed on the tour, given a bit of a new twist here – on titles that include "Fade Up", "Mysterious Chick", "The Opener", and "Big Fat Alice's Blues". LP, Vinyl record album

Incredible early recordings by The Fugs – a set that captures the group at a time when they still had tremendous power and potential! The sessions were originally done for Folkways, then later sold to ESP – and the spare, earthy Folkways approach is perfect for the group, capturing them in a setting that's more of a happening than an actual recording session – a freewheeling hippie-esque party that's perfect for the protest and politics of the songs. Instrumentation includes a lot of hand-held percussion – maracas, tambourine, etc – and the Holy Modal Rounders join the group on some songs as well. Titles include "Saran Wrap", "We're The Fugs", "Caca Rocka", "My Bed Is Getting Crowded", "New Amphetamine Shriek", and "CIA Man". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

A legendary album from the Peruvian scene at the start of the 70s – a record from one of the key groups who were really helping deepen the sound of the music at the time, and take things far past some of the simpler Anglo-inspired music of the 60s! It's tempting to call these guys psychedelic, but they've also got so much more going on too – maybe a bit like some of the Argentine groups, in that they are allowing for regional instrumentation to play with electric elements – all while delivering tunes that have a surprisingly new level of thoughtfulness in the lyrics. The blend is a bit hard to describe, but it comes across instantly in the music – at a level that's made the set one of the true global rock classics of the decade! Titles include "Virgin", "Tell The World I'm Alive", "Yellow Sea Days", "Jews Caboose", "Simple" and "Meshkalina". LP, Vinyl record album

A huge run of records from Yma Sumac – presented here in a box that collects just about everything she recorded for Capitol Records in the 50s! First up is Voice Of The Xtaby – legendary vocal work from the postwar years – some of the earliest recordings from the enigmatic Yma Sumac – an artist whose records really laid the groundwork for an entire generation of exotica records to come! Sumac's authenticity has been debated over the years – but there's no denying that she's got this incredible vocal range – a many-octave approach that almost makes her sound like a human theremin – as she works with exotic backings from Les Baxter to offer up a take on Peruvian roots, styled towards a 50s bachelor pad listener! Titles include "Xtaby", "Wayra", "Taita Inty", "Monos", and "Tumpa". Legend Of The Sun is early work from Yma Sumac – with that moody mix of other worldly vocals and semi-Latin instrumentation that made her a popular one with the early exotic crowd. Yma runs up and down the vocal scale, while Moises Vivanco leads the band in a set of crashing dramatic orchestrations with a Peruvian feel. Tracks include "Sunray Surita", "Mamallayi", "No Es Vida", "Ccori Canastitay", and "Kon Tiki". The package features selections from the album Flahooley – one of the more obscure Yma Sumac albums from the 50s – a Broadway production with a larger cast – and much more of a musical than Sumac's other records. Yma really stands out in the show, though – singing a few special numbers with music by Moises Vivanco – but the rest is familiar Broadway modes of the early 50s, penned by Sammy Fain & EY Harburg. Sumac titles include "Najala's Song Of Joy", "Najala's Lament", and "Come Back Little Genie Birds". Mambo is quite possibly our favorite album ever by the enigmatic Yma Sumac – thanks to some lively arrangements by Billy May, who gives the set a swinging jazzy groove! As you might guess from the cover, the style here is more in a Latin jazz mode than some of Yma's other more ethereal work – and that style turns out to be a wonderful fit for Sumac's incredible vocals – creating a batch of driving tunes that swing nicely, yet still have a spooky exotic sound on the top! Titles include "Bo Mambo", "Taki Rari", "Goomba Boomba", "Malambo No 1", and "Five Bottles Mambo". Inca Taqui is an early 10" LP – on which Yma Sumac sings chants of the Andes – and authentic or not, the sound's pretty darn great! The record's in the same format as her other early work for Capitol – tunes written by Moises Vivanco, who also conducts the backings in a dramatic early 50s style that's perfect for Yma's wonderful voice! And whether or not these tunes are actually the ones that all the cats in Peru were singing up in the mountains, they still sound pretty darn great as a key part of postwar exotica! Titles include "Incachao", "Llulla Mak'Ta", "Chuncho", "K'Arawi", and "Cumbe-Maita". Legend Of The Jivaro is one of Yma's more "historical" records – and the notes say that the album is "the rare plum of authenticity". We don't know if we'd go that far, but we can tell you that the record features Yma performing songs of the legendary Jivaro headhunters! Supposedly, Yma learned them in her "South American jungle-home", but we keep wondering why the headhunters took the time to teach her, when they could have been shrinking her head. Tracks include "Yawar", "Shou Condor", "Aullay", "Sumac Soratena", and "Hampi". Last up is Fuego Del Ande – one of the most obscure albums by vocalist Yma Sumac – and one of the most compelling too! The album has Yma working in the Andean style of her earlier 10" albums for Capitol – working with Moises Vivanco on a set of tunes that have a much more traditional and almost folkloric style than some of her work with Les Baxter. Titles include "Clamor", "Dale Que Dale", "Llora Corazon", "Gallito Caliente", "La Molina", and "Flor De Canela". CD

... CD

An early Madonna single – featuring some sweet Niles Rodgers production and some clubby Jellybean touches on "Like A Virgin"! 12-inch, Vinyl record

John Zorn on alto saxophone and vocals, Bill Laswell on bass, and Mick Harris on drums and vocals. CD

Early work from Yma Sumac – with that moody mix of other worldly vocals and semi-Latin instrumentation that made her a popular one with the early exotic crowd. Yma runs up and down the vocal scale, while Moises Vivanco leads the band in a set of crashing dramatic orchestrations with a Peruvian feel. Tracks include "Sunray Surita", "Mamallayi", "No Es Vida", "Ccori Canastitay", and "Kon Tiki". LP, Vinyl record album

... Cassette

Includes work from the films Quicksilver and Lorca & The Outlaws. CD

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

A rare early chapter in the long legacy of Human League and Heaven 17 – a group of musicians who'd partly go on to form the latter, recently departed from the former – yet still working strongly in the dark, electronic style of the earliest releases from the Sheffield scene! There's plenty of moody analogue sounds going on here – and as a cassette only release back in the day, the whole thing is a key slice of that cold wave underground of the early 80s, even though its members reached later fame – definitely working in territory that's more avant and electronic at times, but with more rhythmic instrumentals as well! Titles include "Music To Kill Your Parents By", "Decline Of The West", "Honeymoon In New York", "A Baby Called Billy", "Wipe The Board Clean", "Uptown Apocalypse", and "The Optimum Chant". CD

Jessie Belvin's often talked about in reverent tones as a bridge between a number of different styles of 50's R&B and vocal soul, but it's not until you hear a great compilation like this one that you realize how fantastic his stuff really is. This excellent Ace set compiles tracks from his great early years at Modern, and even includes some stuff that he did with the vocal group The Cliques. The sound is deep warm LA R&B, with a touch of Charles Brown and Clyde McPhatter, but also a startling premonition of later soul artists like Jerry Butler. Beautiful stuff, with a wide range of tracks, including some unreleased material that's as good as the hits on here. CD

... CD

... CD

A classic double live set from David Bowie – recorded during his years as The Thin White Duke (as you might guess from the cover!), but featuring a fair bit of material from the Ziggy Stardust years! The music is pretty straightforward, and pretty rocking – lots of fuzzy guitar in the Diamond Dogs/Aladdin Sane mode – played by a group with Earl Slick on guitar and Michael Kamen on electric piano and moog. Titles include "Rebel Rebel", "1984", "Knock On Wood", "Here Today Gone Tomorrow", "Watch That Man", "Cracked Actor", "All The Young Dudes", "Width Of A Circle", "Jean Genie", "Rock N Roll Suicide", "Big Brother", and "Panic In Detroit". CD

One of the most soul-based records we've ever heard from trombonist Jeff Bradshaw, and one of the best as well – a rock-solid set that really draws on all his many years of making music, and one that's put together with that effortless blend of jazz and soul that makes Bradshaw so unique! At some level, it's almost as if Jeff has perfectly adopted the mantle of jazzy soul from Wayne Henderson during that late 70s moment when Henderson was both working in The Crusaders and doing so much production work as well. But at another, Jeff's a clearly contemporary artist, and really speaks strongly to the best aspect of the neo soul scene – enforced here on collaborations with Eric Roberson, Raheem DeVaughn, Liz Vaughn, Mike Burton, and others. Titles include "How You Gonna Act Like That", "Make Some Time", "Carrie's Bread Pudding", "Young Broke & Brave", "Don't Wanna Wait", "The Maintenance Man", "Destiny", and "Dubai Voices". CD

Not everyone digs the later Captain and crew, but the early 80s efforts have finally gotten their just props after all these years – and we'll we'll come right out and say that this second to last album before Don Van Vliet hung up the music for painting has always sounded great to us! The Magic Band is incredible as always – with Jeff Morris Tepper, Drumbo French and Eric Drew Feldman's antics under the Captain's idiosyncratic vocalese. With "Hot Head", "Ashtray Heart", "A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond", "Run Paint Run Run", "Sue Egypt", "Brickbats", "Dirty Blue Gene", "Best Batch Yet", "Telephone", "Flavor Bud Living", "Sherriff Of Hong Kong" and "Making Love To A Vampire With A Monkey On My Knee". LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

A set originally issued as a Record Store Day goodie back in 2021, and a record that provides the full Czarface experience by combining a very cool comic book with the tracks on the set! Inspectah Deck drops out here, as the set's really an instrumental set – and works almost like one of those cool 70s Power Records comic/record combos – although more as a soundtrack to use while you're reading the comic! And even if you don't have the book, the music's pretty great on its own – with titles that include "Winged Fingers", "Voyage Dans Le Temps", "Rise Of Czar Noir", "Avant Czar", and the cuts "Czarface Theme 3099" and "Czarbot Theme" – which feature vocals from Kendra Morris! LP, Vinyl record album

A set that really pushes the Czarface legacy further, and maybe even away from its origins in hip hop – as the LP/comic book package has mostly instrumental contributions from 7L, but structured together as a film score for the comic! There's some narration too, but really just in a way to link together the tracks – and the whole thing bursts out with the sort of vivid energy you'd guess from the Marvel-styled image on the front! Artwork is by Gilberto Aguirre Mata – and titles include "A Falling Czar", "Squared Portal", "Funky Premonition", "Something Once Human", "Death Of A Comrade", and "Czartusi". LP, Vinyl record album

A record that was an instant classic from the moment it was first released – and a set that's still pretty darn pleasing all these many years later! At a time when mainstream soul was often too smooth or too poppy, D'Angelo came along and not only found a way to return the music to the years of its power with singers like Al Green or Marvin Gaye – but also managed to bring in some of the best hip hop elements of his generation too, at a level that was far more successful than most other blends that had been tried before! Production is nice and lean, and super-crispy – at a level that so many folks are still copying all these years later – and the set's full of classics that include "Cruisin", "When We Get By", "Smooth", "Me & Those Dreamin Eyes Of Mine", "Brown Sugar", "Alright", and "Jonz In My Bonz". LP, Vinyl record album

Sweet and gritty soul from D'Angelo – who takes a huge step into deeper territory on Voodoo – and it's one of the most monumental records of its time! On one level, Voodoo works as a nicely stripped-down session with a very classic soul feel. Gone are the overzealous flourishes that sometimes overwhelmed his earlier songs, and in their place are some sweetly crafted vocal parts with a classic Marvin Gaye/Al Green feel. That warmth is probably what made Voodoo a massive popular success – but what makes it such a creative triumph are the darker undercurrents – which hint at a troubled soul struggling for spiritual truth. One of the rare cases in popular music when great art became music for the masses! Titles include "Left & Right (feat Method Man & Redman)", "The Line", "Spanish Joint", "Africa", "Feel Like Makin Love", "The Root", "Playa Playa", "Devil's Pie", and "Greatdayndamornin/Booty". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

Brian Eno at the crux of his career – hanging perfectly between the guitar-heavy glam of earlier years, and the spacey electronics of later material – both of which he presents wonderfully on the record! The album is one of his last to feature real rock songs, with the kind of vocals you'd know from Eno's first two albums – and it mixes straighter styles with more complex electronic soundscapes, resulting in some wonderfully cold and abstract material that prefaces musical territory that many other artists wouldn't hit until the following decade! Titles include "Golden Hours", "The Big Ship", "St Elmos Fire", "Sky Saw", "Spirits Drifting", and "Becalmed". CD

... CD

... 12-inch, Vinyl record