There's no disco going on here, and no battling either – as the set's got this wonderfully warm, fluid groove that mixes township rhythms with some sweet jazzy touches – plenty of reed work from Bra Sello on the top, but also plenty of great ensemble instrumentation too! The record features two side-long tracks, but the vibe is very different than Nigerian funk records that follow a similar format – as the musicians here are all rooted in jazz, and really stretch things out with plenty of jazzy solo action, even though the rhythms are more grooving in an extended way. Titles include "Washa" and "Call & Go" – both long, both great! LP, Vinyl record album

A gem of a record from the groundbreaking Landsdowne series of UK jazz recordings at the end of the 70s – an ambitious effort directed by composer Neil Ardley, cut very much in the mode of the best work by the Ian Carr/Don Rendell group of the time! As the title might imply, the tunes are all of Greek mythological inspiration – but not in a hokey sort of style, or one that has any overdone "battle of the gods" feel. Instead, there's a warm, intimate approach to the work – almost in the mode of the best sophisticated jazz soundtracks of the late 60s – with a real concern for color, shadings, and tone – ultimately in a style that has less to do with mythology than you might think, but which is pretty darn impressive nonetheless! Carr plays trumpet and flugelhorn, Rendell plays saxes and flutes – and other players include Jack Bruce on bass, Chris Spedding on guitar, and and Barbara Thompson on reeds. Titles include "The Greek Variations", "Farewell Penelope", "Persephone's Jive", "Veil Of Ino", and "Siren's Song". LP, Vinyl record album

Tommaso Cappellato is a hell of a drummer – one whose work we've loved on other projects, but who sounds even better here in a lean funky combo of his own! Tommaso uses drum programs next to live drums, and his own work on the kit is the real driving force here – complex enough to match the cosmic rhythms on the set, and given great support from group members on bass and electric guitar! Cappellato plays keyboards as well – and the record features a bit of flute, vocals on three tracks, and titles that include "Heart To Mend", "Battle Moves", "Dancing Around Fire", "Made Of Golden Light", "Warming Up", and "The Flow Must Go On". LP, Vinyl record album

A nice little record that lives up to the name of the group – a record that's maybe jazz at the core, but served up in very cinematic ways – very much the spirit of the dark, moody image pictured on the cover! This isn't chase, crime, or cop music – but instead maybe the sounds you'd hear on the journey home after the battle – slow funk in the rhythms, peppered with great work on vibes, piano, and mellotron from Pierre Chretien – who also wrote, arranged, and produced the whole record too! Most tunes have a nice light melody over heavier drums and percussion on the bottom – never too over the top, but well-paced in a way that really makes this one stand out from the pack. Titles include "Les Corbeaux", "Eveil De La Cite", "Aube Sur La Ville", "Fleurs De Bitume", "Le Petit Cimetiere", "Apres Le Deluge", and "Illusions Perdues". LP, Vinyl record album

Sophisticated fusion from Japanese reedman Toshiyuki Honda – a set that's kind of an extension of the straighter sounds he'd crafted a few years before! The album has almost a soundtrack-like feel at times – and comes off like a suite of tracks that blends core combo instrumentation with larger strings – in ways that color in the tunes wonderfully – but in ways that are quite different from some of the other "jazz with strings" albums of the time! Honda's work on soprano sax, alto, and keyboards is great throughout – and although some of the rhythms are programmed, they're still quite warm and hardly the too-commercial type that other jazz artists were using at the time. Titles include "Waltz Crepuscule", "Love Theme #2", "A Refracted Beat", "The Woman From Marusa", "The Men Gather Round Money", and "A Gloomy Foreboding Of Battle". LP, Vinyl record album

Funky, fuzzy, and outta site – a really wonderful set of extended psychedelic jazz numbers from twin tenorists Takeru Muraoka and Takao Uematsu! The set's billed as a live tenor "battle" on the cover – but it's hardly the sort of record that you'd hear from American players in this mode – no bebop jams, and instead some great soul and funk-influenced lines on the horns, served up over rhythm from a trio that features electric piano, electric bass, and drums from the mighty Motohiko Hino! There's a nice degree of fuzz on the saxes at times (are they using some effects pedals?) – and the long tunes really open up with a wicked groove that feels like some lost US jazz funk album from the early 70s. Titles include "Happy Birth", "Listen Here", "Hot Sunday", and "CC Rider". LP, Vinyl record album

A seminal early album from Ian Carr's legendary Nucleus group – playing here in a version that includes Karl Jenkins and Brian Smith on reeds, and Chris Spedding on guitar! The band has a landmark sound that mixes progressive jazz and tight full-on rock fusion into a style that's sometimes funky, sometimes avant, and often pretty darn exciting! This album has lots of nice electric piano lines, and plenty of choppy sax parts that hit a nice groove in the manner that would later be taken up by a lot of European reed players. Tracks include "Torrid Zone", "Stonescape", "Striation", "1916 – The Battle Of Boogaloo", "Persephones Jive", and "Earth Mother". LP, Vinyl record album

Hard rock perfected! It's around Led Zeppelin IV that you can easily say that the group moved up from being incredibly great to flat-out legendary – really in a class by themselves, although maybe they'd already reached that point with the sublime sounds of the previous three records! There's a darkness here – and a sense of magick too – an eerie new energy that still has all the balls-out rock power of before, but which has the group moving into this heady territory that's really all their own. Every song is a classic – and tracks include "Black Dog", "Stairway To Heaven", "Rock And Roll", "Misty Mountain Hop", "When The Levee Breaks", "Going To California", "Four Sticks", and "Battle Of Evermore". LP, Vinyl record album

A postwar sci fi soundtrack, but one that also marks a really important step in electronic music too – as the film features a whole host of amazing constructions from the duo of Louis and Bebe Barron! The pair built a lot of their own early instruments, and it sounds like they're using some theremin here too – all very primitive, but in the best way possible – as there's a stark quality to the analogue sounds here that still holds up all these many years later – every bit as great as creations to come from Tom Dissevelt, Kid Baltan, and all those other giants to come! tracks range from less than a minute to a few minutes each – and titles include "Flurry of Dust", "The Landing", "Invisible Monster Approaches", "Deceleration", "Battle With Invisible Monster", "The Homecoming", and "Ancient Krell Music". LP, Vinyl record album

The cover's a bit spare, but the grooves are plenty darn full – a very cool version of funk with some psychedelic touches – all served up as the debut set by The Oscillators! There's a gentle current of distortion on the record, used in all the right ways – sometimes making the basslines a bit fuzzy, sometimes the guitars – and always giving the music a sinister vibe that's mighty nice – as if these guys are a bit more badass than your usual funky combo, and maybe not one that you'd want to run in backstage after a battle of the bands! Titles include "Let's Get There", "Track Suit", "Spanish Monster", "Packet O Cheese", "Intersextion", "Spinning Species", and "Flip Flap". LP, Vinyl record album

You might know the trumpet of Antoine Berjeaut from his work with Makaya McCraven – but here, as a leader, he's a very different force overall – working in territory that's mostly his own, and which blends his trumpet and flugelhorn solos with a nice array of electric elements! The approach is almost a 21st Century evolution of older Miles electric modes – but more stripped-down, intimate, and compressed – save for the few moments when Berjeaut opens the door to invite other guests into the proceedings – something that doesn't happen much until the end of the record. Instead, Antoine handles all instruments and sounds himself – soloing over the top on all tracks – in a mix of titles that include "Walk", "Meeting Point", "Mind's Eyes", "Photism", "PPDQ", "Horns & Battle", "Chromatism", and "Life In Ocre". LP, Vinyl record album

Bang the box – a classic battle cry from the glory days of Chicago house – summed up here perfectly with a stack of tracks from the short-lived AKA Music label! The package follows strongly in the mode of Still Music's Kill Yourself Dancing set – and like that one, it offers up a really great look at a tiny label from the Windy City club scene – an imprint who cut some key tracks that barely made it out of the midwest, but which really helped to shape the house-heavy rhythms that went onto inspire countless artists in years to come! AKA only issued records for two short years in the mid 80s – but they really helped push some of the leaner, cleaner Chicago house modes that were bursting into the limelight in the acid years – those cool keyboards and dark beats that still stand out as some of the best elements from the classic years. The notes do a great job of telling the story from the perspective of the clubs and the streets – and titles include "Rock It" by Matt Warren & Michaelangelo, "Bang The Box (bang the house mix)" by Matt Warren, "Take Me Higher (ultimate acid mix" by Nexus 6, "Lost In The World" by Michaelangelo, "The Music's Got Me (club mix)" by Team, "Pleasure Dome (house mix)" by Modern Mechanical Music, "Don't Bring Back Memories" by Matt Warren & Michaelangelo, and "Alternative House" by Michaelangelo. LP, Vinyl record album

A really great collection of work from De-Lite Records – one that goes way way past the bigger hits on the label from Kool & The Gang and the Kay-Gees! Instead, this one really digs deep – and comes up with rare 45s for a host of artists that we didn't even know recorded for De-Lite – obscure but great material that shows just how tied to the east coast scene the label was before it starting hitting the charts and the clubs! There's lots here you'll be hard-pressed to track down otherwise – and titles include "The Story Of Our Love" and "It Really Hurts Me Girl" by The Carstairs, "Super Soul Music" and "I Got To Get Close To You" by Yvonne Daniels, "Darling Baby" and "I Wish It Would Rain" by Beverly Hammonds, "I Need You" and "I'll Always Love You" by Felton Burks, "I Smell Trouble" by Johnny De'Vigne, "Love Making" and "When A Woman Loves A Man" by Jean Battle, and "I Saw You There" and "Keep Away" by The Appointments. LP, Vinyl record album

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Kid Koala, and Dan The Automator pool their skills for this dawn of the 2000s sci-fi hip hop classic – the masterful Deltron 3030! The guest list is almost too long to get into, but Money Mark, Prince Paul, PB Wolf and Mr. Lif are all here, along with many others. One of the benchmark albums in the leftfield underground hip hop canon – and a hugely influential set that burst the doors wide open for the more creative spirits in the hip hop and even experimental pop. Tracks include "State Of The Nation", "3030", "The Fantabulous Rap Extravaganza", "Things You Can Do", "Positive Contact", "St Catherine St.", "Virus", "Mastermind", "National Movie Review", "Time Keeps On Slipping", "Turbulence (remix)", "Battlesong", "Memory Loss" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

A timeless collaboration between Nujabes and Fat Jon – tracks done for the animated Samurai Champloo project, but music that stands more than strongly on its own – with a sublime mix of soulful currents and beat-heavy rhythms! The set begins with a number of tracks that have Nujabes in the lead – with that soul-heavy style that makes his work of this moment so wonderful – balanced by Fat Jon contributions that are maybe even better than records issued as a solo act! Titles include "Ole", "Genome", "No Way Back", "Transcendence", "Aruarian Dance", "Battlecry", "The Space Between Two Worlds", "1st Samurai", and "How You Feel". LP, Vinyl record album

Maybe not the complete roots of African funk, but a set that does a great job of bringing together a range of different cuts that show the new sounds and styles that were really hitting the scene as the 70s moved in – work from a wide variety of sources, but which all seems to share a sound and spirit with some of the newly independent African nations! There's a few African funk cuts in the mix, but the more interesting ones are almost those from the Anglo world that show a similar sense of groove, but with a slightly different vibe – coming across here on cuts that include "Waterbed (inst)" by LTD Exchange, "African Queen" by Allez Allez, "Them Changes" by Lionel Hampton, "Sangandongo" by Niagara, "Wassahoumba" by Africa Djole, "Do The Choo Choo" by Jack Ashford, "Africa Gone Funky" by Screaming Jay Hawkins, "Super Kumba" by Manu Dibango, "Tite Rope" by Harold Alexander, "Fat City Strut" by Mandrill, and "Corey Died On The Battlefield" by Wild Magnolias. LP, Vinyl record album