A well done book about the continuing importance of soul and R&B in black culture over the decades – one that begins its journey in the 70s, and moves right up to the present with a key chapter on the music in the post-George Floyd landscape in America! Author Alexander Ghedi Weheliye has a very particular bent at times – and the chapters work together more almost like related essays, instead of an exhaustive whole – a format that allows him to shift topics easily – between cellphones, new wave, remix technology, and diaspora – while still also bringing everything together through continuing themes, and copious notes that accompany the writings. The book also features two interviews, and directions to an accompanying playlist on Spotify – and this softcover edition is almost 300 pages, with some black and white images. Book

A guide to classical records, of sorts – but one that features older albums all picked by the well-known Japanese writer Haruki Murakami! Murakami is well-known as a lifetime lover of music, which comes through in his fiction, and which is almost more foregrounded in his essays – a body of work that's greatly expanded here – as Haruki presents full color images of treasured albums in his collection – mostly vinyl offerings from the 20th century, with a range of works that goes back to the early years of classical on mono LPs! Each cover image is presented with the label and date in English, and other details in Japanese – but you can easily use Google Translate on your phone to read the rest of these spare details, then set it to translate the longer essays that accompany the images. There's definitely more Japanese text here than in the "disc guides" we stock – but the images alone provided a great start to building a strong classical collection, guided by a true master. Softcover edition is 380 pages, with full color images throughout. Book

A guide to classical records, of sorts – but one that features older albums all picked by the well-known Japanese writer Haruki Murakami! Murakami is well-known as a lifetime lover of music, which comes through in his fiction, and which is almost more foregrounded in his essays – a body of work that's greatly expanded here – as Haruki presents full color images of treasured albums in his collection – mostly vinyl offerings from the 20th century, with a range of works that goes back to the early years of classical on mono LPs! Each cover image is presented with the label and date in English, and other details in Japanese – but you can easily use Google Translate on your phone to read the rest of these spare details, then set it to translate the longer essays that accompany the images. There's definitely more Japanese text here than in the "disc guides" we stock – but the images alone provided a great start to building a strong classical collection, guided by a true master. Softcover edition is 350 pages, with full color images throughout. Book

A hefty look at the key role of composition in British jazz during the glorious modern uprising that began in the second half of the 60s – a book that features chapters on key figures from that moment, including Barry Guy, Mike Gibbs, Michael Garrick, Mike Westbrook, John Mayer, and Keith Tippet! Each of the artists had their own way of mixing stricture and improvisation – Mayer in his experiments with Indian music, Guy in his embrace of free jazz, Gibbs in the way he mixed rock influences with avant jazz – a legacy that continues to be hugely influential, all these many years later! And don't mistake "composer" with "classical" – as none of these artists made music that was jazz throughout, not some of the more highbrow experiments on the American scene of the postwar years – an approach that author Duncan Heining gets at well in these pages, then backs up with a great bonus 2CD set of material to illustrate his arguments. Hardcover book is over 300 pages, with some black and white images. Book