A legendary album from bassist Paul Jackson – best known for his work in Herbie Hancock's Headhunters group – getting a rare chance to shine as a leader on his own, in a session that was originally only issued in Japan! Jackson is in prime Headhunters territory here, but also brings a spirit of his own – working with a wonderful lineup that includes Herbie Hancock on piano and keyboards, Ray Obiedo on guitar, Bennie Maupin on saxes, Webster Lewis on organ and keyboards, and Alphonse Mouzon on drums – all players who really help knock the record out of the park! The tracks are nice and long, and mix funk with more spiritual currents – with occasional vocals from Jackson that come as a nice surprise. Titles include the killer "Funk Times Three", which starts with a massive drum break – "Tiptoe Thru The Ghetto", "Burning In The Heat (Of Your Love)", and "Black Octopus". LP, Vinyl record album

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A strange film, but a great soundtrack! George Duning came up with an excellent batch of jazzy tracks for the film – and most of them swing hard and tightly, with strong jazzy solos, in a manner that's similar to some of Mancini's best scores of the late 50s. A number of tracks have odd "Eastern" touches in the melody – mostly through the use of percussion – and this makes the jazzy tracks even nicer, and gives them a strange feel that's similar to some of the "east meets jazz" albums on Verve during the 60s. Titles include "Aberdeen Caper", "Gwenny Lee", "At The Namcock", "Groove For Suzie", and "Hit The Road To Dreamland". Towards the end of the soundtrack, some cuts have a more orchestral feel, and this is in keeping with the change of mood in the film. LP, Vinyl record album

A cool quintet session from the great trombonists JJ Johnson and Kai Winding – one that really lets their twin horns soar free together – with only a bit of light backing to spur them on! The group's got a great rhythm section – with Dick Katz on piano, Al Harewood on drums, and either Milt Hinton or Wendell Marshall on bass – and the format is simple, but wonderful – as Kai and JJ step out tightly on the leads, then trade solo lines with effortless easy – almost in the way a jazz vocal harmony group might at the time! The pair recorded often together, but this set's still one of their greatest – and titles include "Stolen Bass", "Out Of This World", "Gong Rock", "Lope City", and "That's How I Feel About You". LP, Vinyl record album

A compilation of the Nonesuch Explorer series. It's split up into The Far East, which features "Ketjak", "Baris", "Frong Song", "Ketawang", "Echigojishi", and "Shrine Music"; India, which contains "Ni Ri Ni Ri Ga Ma", "Jogia", "Yaman", "Banturiti", and "Telisi Rama Chintanato"; Africa & The Americas, which contains "Me Voy A Belen", "Candomble", "Gumbukumbu", and "El Perro"; and Continental Europe, which includes "Krivo Horo", "Sto Limani Tou Piraea", "Ladarke", "Gaida Avasi", and "Sinoc M I Je Lane Mojo Dolazio Mile". LP, Vinyl record album

A brilliant mix of jazz and world music! Abdul-Malik was the legendary bass player from the fifties who mixed straight jazz playing with traditional Middle Eastern rhythms – and although he most famously recorded albums with Monk as a regular bassist, his albums on his own are amazing blends of jazz and world music, done years before anyone else had contemplated doing so! This album is similar to Abdul-Malik's Jazz Sahara album, in which he plays quite a bit on the Oud – but in this one the ensemble is much more jazz-oriented, and features Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Benny Golson, and Johnny Griffin. The Oud holds center stage on most tracks, but then it drops out, and Morgan and Griffin come wailing in on solos that will rip your socks off! Titles include "Rooh", "La Ibky", "Takseem", "Searchin", and "El Ghada". Fantastic!!!! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the best early albums cut by John Lewis as a leader – a set that's a fair bit different than John's work with the Modern Jazz Quartet – thanks to strong guest appearances from players who include Paul Gonsalves and Benny Golson on tenor sax, Eric Dolphy on alto, Jim Hall on guitar, and Herb Pomeroy on trumpet. Most of the tracks are a great mix of the mellow, introspective Lewis approach with some of the freer, more relaxed styles of the soloists – an approach that's slightly third stream, but which also has some of the great sounds and tones that Lewis forged on his Afternoon In Paris album with Sacha Distel. Titles include great versions of "Body & Soul" and "Afternoon In Paris", plus Lewis' classic "2 Degrees East, 3 Degrees West", as well as "I Should Care" and "I Remember Clifford". LP, Vinyl record album

Frank Zappa & The Mothers, live at the Fillmore East – showing the world they've got plenty of greatness to offer away from the studio! The band here is super-tight – with the ferocity of Chunga's Revenge, but still enough room between the jamming for some mad bits of dialog and vocals – which are then offset by great keyboards and saxes from Ian Underwood, electronics from Don Preston, and heavy drums from Aynsley Dunbar! There's a focus to the sound of the group here that really draws together all the strands from the previous few years – and titles include "The Mud Shark", "What Kind Of Girl Do You Think We Are", "Willie The Pimp", "Happy Together", "Lonesome Electric Turkey", and "Tears Began To Fall". LP, Vinyl record album

A record that features the legendary multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Miller exploring the Middle East – but one that seems to also open up with some other cultural flavors as well! There's a bit less jazz here than some of Miller's other sets from the time – as instrumentation is very heavy on the sort of global elements that he collected and mastered back home in the US – a mix of percussion, stringed, and reed instruments that are used in wonderfully evocative ways – often upbeat and grooving, but usually free of Western rhythmic constraints! Titles include "Turkey", "Arab World", "Zarb Solo", "Spain", "Shur", "Mahur", and "Amen Avci Vurma Beni". LP, Vinyl record album

One of many unoffical Prince recordings that started to become unearthed in the 80s, and though the sleeve says these recordings are from 1977, we'd argue that they were likely a bit later than that, as there's definitely a distinctly 80s feel to the tracks, which were recorded with lineup including Andre Cymone and Pepe Willie. 6 tracks in all, mostly instrumental though a couple have some spots of female vocals: "If You Feel Like Dancin", "Lovin Cup", "Games", "Just Another Sucker", "Dance To The Music Of The World" and "One Man Jam". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the best non-Winchester albums from the team of Ferrante & Teicher – not as crazy as some of their work, but still with some good elements of the piano trickery that made them famous. Titles include "Out Of This World", "East Of The Sun", "Over The Rainbow", "Stars In My Eyes", and "Stella By Starlight". Also features the original tracks "Serenade To A Star" and "Beyond The Moon". LP, Vinyl record album

A vocal group classic from back in the day – the one and only full length set issued by The Presidents – one of those east coast groups who really knew how to knock it out of the park! Van McCoy handles the production, and wrote and arranged most of the tracks too – and the record's got that careful approach he brought to all of his best late 60s indie work, but touched with some great 70s currents that really echo nicely with the generation of the Stylistics, Moments, and Delfonics! The set includes the big title cut "Years Of Love" – plus "Gotta Keep Movin", "For You", "Sweet Magic", "This Is My Dream World", and "How Can You Say You're Leavin". LP, Vinyl record album

Nas' debut LP masterpiece Illmatic – a record that will probably stand forever as one of the greatest hip hop full lengths of its time! Nas has had some creative ups-and-downs over the years, but nothing can take away the impact of this damn near perfect slice of east coast street hop – truly one of the great, filler free, beginning-to-end classics with not a wasted second! Part of the strength of the record is the top-shelf choice of production – work from DJ Premier, Large Professor, Pete Rock and Q-Tip – all of whom help the young Nas really find his voice with the right sort of vibe – on titles that include "NY State Of Mind", "Life's A B***h", "Half Time", "One Love", "Memory Lane", "Represent", "The World Is Yours", and "It Ain't Hard To Tell". Columbia has gone all out with the reverence on this double LP reissue, with remastered sound polish and a bonus LP with remixes of "World Is Yours", "Life's A B***h", "One Love" and "It Ain't Hard To Tell", plus bonus tracks "On The Real" and "Star Wars". LP, Vinyl record album

No heavy metal here – just tight and funky jamming from the mighty Brecker Brothers! There's a bit more guitar here than on some of their other records – hence, possibly, the title – but the whole thing's still very much in that mix of soulful fusion and jazzy soloing that the pair forged strongly in the mid 70s. Keyboards and guitar jam strongly, but Randy and Michael still get in plenty of space for their solos – pushing their jazz licks with the jamming intensity that might normally be relegated to guitar heroes in the rock world. Tracks include "Inside Out", "Some Skunk Funk", "Sponge", "East River", "Funky Sea Funky Dew", and "Squids". LP, Vinyl record album

Nas' debut LP masterpiece Illmatic – a record that will probably stand forever as one of the greatest hip hop full lengths of its time! Nas has had some creative ups-and-downs over the years, but nothing can take away the impact of this damn near perfect slice of east coast street hop – truly one of the great, filler free, beginning-to-end classics with not a wasted second! Part of the strength of the record is the top-shelf choice of production – work from DJ Premier, Large Professor, Pete Rock and Q-Tip – all of whom help the young Nas really find his voice with the right sort of vibe – on titles that include "NY State Of Mind", "Life's A B***h", "Half Time", "One Love", "Memory Lane", "Represent", "The World Is Yours", and "It Ain't Hard To Tell". LP, Vinyl record album

An overlooked gem from trumpeter Charles Tolliver – not as well known as his Strata East sessions with Music Inc, but equally great! The sound here is a bit different than some of Tolliver's other albums of the 70s – as the group features the guitar of Nathan Page in place of the usual piano – working with an incredible rhythm duo of Steve Novosel on bass and Alvin Queen on drums, both players who gel together beautifully here, making the album a rhythmic delight throughout! Page's guitar often has these weird little edgey moments, which seems to bring out the same in Tolliver – adding in a new complexity to his well-known style of far-reaching lines on trumpet. The album's got 4 long tracks, nicely hung together with a sound that's searching, but never too loose to swing – and titles include "Earl's World", "Impact", "Truth", and "Compassion". LP, Vinyl record album

The start of a wonderful run of sounds – the debut album from Dead Can Dance, and a set that's maybe more linked to the larger world of 4AD Records than some of their later material! All the moody touches we love are already in place – those amazing ancient-sounding vocals of Lisa Gerrard, and that blend of exotic percussion and European string instrumentation that works surprisingly well – yet there's also elements that echo a bit of the Factory Records groups, and maybe other 4AD work – stronger drum patterns at points, and maybe a bit more coldness in the production. That blend makes for a record that's a great step after hearing Joy Division or groups of that nature – and titles include "Musica Eternal", "A Passage In Time", "East Of Eden", "Threshold", "The Fatal Impact", "Fortune", and "Ocean". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer classic from grooveman Don Downing – the kind of indie disco record that really broke big in the 70s – but which hardly ever got the longer-term fame it deserved! The grooves here are straight and simple – the best early east coast club modes of the mid 70s – more tight funk than commercial disco, especially when topped by some of the deeper soul moments of Don Downing – who can come across like Johnny Taylor on his Columbia cuts in a similar setting! Backings are great – handled by studio giants like Pat Rebillot on keyboards, Bad Bascomb on bass, and Jimmy Maelen on congas – and titles include "Dream World", "Sugar & Spice", "Doctor Boogie", "Love Doctor", and "Half Past Love". LP, Vinyl record album

A short, brilliant blast of creative wordplay from Earl Sweatshirt – who'd been riding a peak for years leading up the Feet Of Clay and shows no signs of coming down – with production by ES himself, Alchemist, Ovrcast and a Mach Hommy, all tasked with providing a moody, headnodding backdrop for such a distinctive figure, and they pull it off perfectly. The vinyl version of Feet Of Clay plays longer than the earlier digital releases, but it still has the short and sweet feeling of being dropped into a strangely lyrical dream and lifted out before you wake up. 9 tracks that for the most part find Earl in peak unfiltered stream of consciousness flow from beginning to end, each track seamlessly floating to the next. Includes "74", "East", "Mtomb" feat L.Ive, "OD", "El Toro Combo Meal" feat Mavi, "Tisk Tisk/Cookies" and "4N" feat Mach Hommy, "Ghost" and "Whole World". LP, Vinyl record album

A great one by Clifford Jordan! The LP was originally recorded for "Dolphy Productions" in Paris, and with a feel and a spirit very similar to his classic Strata East albums from the same time, like Glass Bead Games and In The World. The group is similar to those recordings too, and features Cedar Walton, Sam Jones, and Billy Higgins. Tracks are nice and long, and there's a great take on the Strata fave "John Coltrane", plus other nice ones that include "Midnight Waltz","One For Amos", and "Highest Mountain". LP, Vinyl record album

Man, that east coast harmony sound couldn't miss in the 70s – as proven by the huge AM radio success of New York City! The band wasn't the greatest harmony group in the world – although they did feature John Brown, who'd cut his teeth in the Five Satins – but when you teamed them up with production by Thom Bell, and backing from the Sigma Sound Studios, they created an unstoppable sound that was a perfect pop peddling of the harmony group sound. This album was their biggest – and it includes the classic "I'm Doin' Fine Now", plus lots of other nice tracks like "Hang Your Head In Shame", "Quick, Fast, In A Hurry", "Uncle James", and "Reach Out". LP, Vinyl record album

Quite an unusual record for Sonny Rollins – but a great one too! At first glance the concept is a strange one – almost a crazy decision to pair modernist tenorist Sonny Rollins with a set of large brassy arrangements – but oddly, the idea works, and works nicely – as Rollins' edgey solos cut through the heavy arrangements with ease, creating some angular counterpoint and a tight little space to make his own sound. The group was conducted by Ernie Wilkins, and the flipside of the album features Rollins playing in a small trio with the great Henry Grimes on bass (who also played with Rollins on some of his best sessions from the time!) and Charles Wright on drums. Titles include "Manhattan", "If You Were The Only Girl In the World", "Who Cares?", and "Far Out East". Originally issued on MGM/Metro – but this is the Verve pressing. LP, Vinyl record album

Nothing too peaceful here – at least not in a sleepy sort of way – as The Rascals are really hitting on all burners, and starting to mix a bit of funk in with their groove! The record's a great extension of the group's last work on Atlantic – and it takes that already-righteous territory, and furthers it a bit more with some heavy rhythms on the bottom, and nicely jamming guitar work on the top! There's a great sense of soul that informs the whole album – even at some of the more rockish points – and titles include the excellent side-long cut "Peaceful World", a long instrumental workout with a nice slow bubbling funky sound that's almost in the style of Chicano rock. The albumf eatures guest work from jazz players like Hubert Laws on flute, Alice Coltrane on harp, Garnett Brown on trombone, Joe Garrell on tenor sax, and Joe Newman on trumpet – and other titles include "Little Dove", "Visit To Mother Nature Land", "Happy Song", "Icy Water", "Sky Trane", and "In & Out Of Love". LP, Vinyl record album

The title says it all – as Yusef Lateef works here in that wonderful mixture of hardbop, soul jazz, and Eastern stylings that he brought to all of his best early sessions as a leader! Lateef himself is playing tenor, flute, and oboe – which he uses to craft these eerie snakecharmer lines that work perfectly with the modal grooves of the tracks – very unusual rhythms for the time, and a real precursor to some of the world jazz experiments to come from overseas. The rest of the group features pianist Barry Harris, drummer Lex Humphries, and bassist Ernie Farrow, who also plays a strange instrument called a rabat – which further adds to the charm of the record. Titles include "Plum Blossom", "Purple Flower", "Three Faces Of Balal", and "Chinq Miau". LP, Vinyl record album

The Beastie Boys are looking plenty playful on the cover, and they definitely follow up in spirit on the record – all with that great mix of really rich production that they seemed to discover on the west coast – while still able to serve up all the youthful energy when they burst into the world frm the New York scene! The album has a space of a few years between its predecessor Ill Communication – and it almost feels as if the Beasties spent that time to go record shopping and crate digging – to bring in all these really cool musical twists and turns that remind us that some of their best expressions often come from the direct inspirations of others! Lee Scratch Perry and Money Mark help out on the set – but as always, it's the energy of the core trio that really ignites the fire – on titles that include "Super Disco Breakin", "The Move", "Song For The Man", "Just A Test", "Body Movin'", "Intergalactic", "Flowin Prose", "Remote Control", "Three MCs & One DJ", "Song For Junior", and "Dr Lee PhD". LP, Vinyl record album

Pretty amazing music from new immigrants to the US – a range of different sounds from Eastern European cultures, reworked here for recordings on American 78s! The music has echoes of Jewish styles, and bits of early polka – although polka itself as a genre wouldn't emerge until years later, as these various cultures tried to find a common ground in the mainstream. Most of the recordings are relatively rootsy – and feel more like ethnographic sounds captured in the old world – and the LP comes with a really great booklet of notes, with way more detail than usual for Mississippi! 16 tracks in all – with work by Edward Mika, Wladyslaw Polak, Stanislaw Mermel, Orkiestra Majkuta, and others. LP, Vinyl record album

The title's a bit misleading – as Chico really wasn't much of a hitmaker, at least as far as the charts go – but the album is a wonderful collection of his groundbreaking work for Impulse, killer tracks that are head and shoulders above any of his earlier work! At the time, Hamilton was really going out from his more composed style of earlier years – exploring modal and eastern rhythms with the help of strong players like Gabor Szabo, Charlie Mariano, Charles Lloyd, Jerome Richardson, and Larry Coryell – setting up incredible off-beat grooves that proved to be a perfect foil for edgey reed solos, and tightly woven guitar work. The set's got a heck of a lot of great work from those years – and titles include "For Mods Only", "That Boy With The Long Hair", "Helena", "Baby You Should Know", "Manila", "Lonesome Child", "El Moors", "Transfusion", and "Man From Two Worlds". LP, Vinyl record album

Maybe the greatest album ever from Thin Lizzy – at least in terms of the group's mainstream acceptance by the rest of the world! The group had already been going for years by the time of this set – with the amazing bass and vocals of Phil Lynott to mark their very distinct sound – and the guitar of Scott Gorham really rising in the lead, giving the group the sharpness to really mix the richest sort of instrumental force with their already-powerful lyrics and rhythms! The result is a classic rock masterpiece through and through – a record that gave the world huge hits like "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back In Town" – but which is filled with gems that include "Angel From The Coast", "Cowboy Song", "Warriors", "Emerald" and "Fight Or Fall". LP, Vinyl record album

A deeper dig into the career of Carl Dawkins than the previous volume with the same title – and a set that really gets at the more righteous energy that Carl brought to the years of early reggae! The image on the front really gets at the power of the music here – this up-close, very soulful style that moves the music past some of the simpler themes of the ska and rocksteady years, and maybe even comes as a strong precursor to the roots years – at least in the way that Carl delivers the material. Titles include "Not Another Woman", "My Whole World", "Persevere", "Hot & Sticky", "This Land", "Don't Get Weary", "Why Oh Why", "Dreadful Situation", and "No Happiness Here". LP, Vinyl record album

Doc Watson's excellent self-titled LP for Vanguard – a pivotal folk guitar record to say the very least – and easily one of our favorite albums to blossom from the folk revival movement of the 60s! The authenticity is a hallmark here, but that aside, the flat out skill is untouchable. Doc plays guitar, 5-string banjo and harmonica on the set, with second guitar by John Herald on just a couple tunes. Titles include "Nashville Blues", "Sitting On Top Of The World", "Country Blues", "Six Thousand", "Omie Wise", "Talk About Suffering", "Doc's Guitar", "Deep River Blues", "St James Hospital", "Tom Dooley" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

A crucial record in the early days of the global scene in the 80s – a set that lifts the music of King Sunny Ade from its roots in Nigeria, and mixes it up with some fresh elements that really open things up for a world's worth of ears! The approach isn't commercial – at least not in the modes of the later world music years – but there's occasional elements that echo the beat culture rising up in New York and London, mixed with the warmer sounds that were always at Sunny's music – especially that way of making the acoustic percussion and basslines come together in flowing waves of completely sublime sound! All tracks are nice and long – and titles include "Gboromiro", "Oremi", "Ire", "Iro", "Ogunja", and "Ase". LP, Vinyl record album

The crowning achievement of a young Elton John – and the record that took an already-great run of earlier records, and pushed it even further with a new depth of songwriting and imagination! The double-length set isn't exactly a concept album – at least not one with a unified narrative – but it works beautifully as a set of little pictures of the world seen through the eyes of Elton and Bernie Taupin – both at the height of their powers, and able to balance catchy commercial tunes with some grittier undercurrents. The set's filled with classics – and titles include "Candle In The Wind", "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", "Bennie & The Jets", "Social Disease", "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting", "Harmony", "Jamaica Jerk-Off", and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". LP, Vinyl record album

Maybe one of the first truly tuneful moments from Yoko Ono – working here with backing from the Elephants Memory group – on a double-length set that shows a really great range from the singer! Yoko's vocals are fragile and sometimes a bit strained in the traditionally structured song mode –but so were Nico's and Marianne Faithful's – both artists we'd almost reference for the nature of this work! The set's a surprisingly pleasant effort from a misunderstood artist who just 2 years earlier was shrieking like a feral beast – and titles include "Yang Yang", "Death Of Samantha", "I Want My Love To Rest Tonight", "What Did I Do", "What A Bastard The World Is", "I Felt Like Smashing My Face In A Clear Glass Window", and "Is Winter Here To Stay". LP, Vinyl record album

Two rare Charlie Parker albums in a single set! First up is Bird On 52nd Street – one of the more obscure Charlie Parker sessions of the 40s – at least in the original release! The material was recorded in 1948, on a home tape recorder, but not issued until after his death – part of a huge wave of Charlie Parker material that hit the market at the end of the 50s and start of the 60s! The sound here is quite raw – made even more so by the recording quality – but it also offers up a good illustration of the sheer power of Bird back in the day, the kind of bold, bracing energy that made even more than the regular jazz world sit up and take notice. The group's a quintet – with Miles Davis on trumpet, Duke Jordan on piano, Tommy Potter on bass, and Max Roach on drums – and there's been a few tape tricks in the mastering, in order to come up with a better version of some of the recordings. Tracks are short – in true bebop format – and titles include "Night In Tunisia", "Dizzy Atmosphere", "Out Of Nowhere", "My Old Flame", "How High The Moon", "This Time The Dream's On Me", "Hot House", and "Chasin The Bird". Next is Bird At St Nicks – a posthumous issue of an early 50s live set by Charlier Parker – one of the many that were rushed to the public in the years after his early death. The set, like many of the other live ones from the time, isn't recorded that well – but the music is still pretty wonderful. There's a real focus on Bird in the way the microphone was set up – so although you hear the rest of the band comping in the background, the album almost works like a session of solo sax work by Parker – as his alto is right out front in the mix, playing with a faltering style at times – but in a way that only seems to deepen our vision of his genius. Players include Red Rodney on trumpet and Al Haig on piano – and titles include "Ornithology", "Star Eyes", "Visa", "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", and "Confirmation". LP, Vinyl record album

A weird set of sitar and bongos backed sing-speak about gurus, devil gods, leprechauns, elves, opium, the wind, hippie boys and other oddball psychedelia enhanced storytelling from Kali,The Gypsy Star Child! We don't know a thing about Kali – she has a cute, girly-girl, Anytown, USA voice, but the hippie fantasy, pseudo spiritual storytelling is weird, yet genuinely committed – with droning, Eastern-tinged psych backdrops. Includes "A Game Called Who Am I", "Cosmic Remembrance", "A Cosmic Telephone Call", "From The Angel Liesle & The Buddha" and "How Can I Tell My Guru?" LP, Vinyl record album

An incredible record from funky drummer Idris Muhammad! Idris is probably known for his funky break work on Blue Note and Prestige records sessions of the late 60s and early 70s – but by the time of this 1974 album, he was really expanding his style, hitting a laidback groove that went way beyond the simple drum break, into a world of complicated fills and riffs that forever changed the face of funk. The best example of this is the album's standout groove – the massive cut "Loran's Dance", which has a mellow jazzy vibe that you'll recognize from its popular use as a sample cut over the years (by the Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow, and others.) All cuts are long and mellow, and other titles include "Power Of Soul", "Saddest Thing" and "Piece of Mind". LP, Vinyl record album

Overlooked genius from the scene in Athens, GA – served up by a group who also borrow plenty of influences from the UK post-punk world too! Pylon are heavy on bass that might be borrowed from Young Marble Giants, but then turned up in sound and speed – matched with these great guitar lines that are complex in sound, but right on the money in terms of placement – all topped with the vocals of Vanessa Biscoe Hay – a singer who's nicely understated, and as much a part of the sonic mix as the other elements in the group! Titles include "Feast On My Heart", "Precaution", "Driving School", "Gravity", "Working Is No Problem", "Stop It", "Danger", and "Read A Book". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the three great collaborations between David Bowie and Brian Eno – and possibly the ultimate statement from his years in Berlin! The album's got some tunes that still show some of the guitar power of the early 70s Bowie – but it's also got some of the beautiful spacier moments brought forward on Low – and which are every bit the Brian Eno of Another Green World. The balance is beautiful – stark and dark on one half, then airy and spacious on the next – handled without any sense of gimmickry, and a bold mainstream experiment that still resonates strongly today. Titles include "Beauty & The Beast", "Joe The Lion", "Heroes", "Sons Of The Silent Age", "Blackout", "V-2 Schneider", "Sense Of Doubt", "Moss Garden", "Neukoln", and "The Secret Life Of Arabia". LP, Vinyl record album

Beautiful record by this little-known vocal quartet, who (we think) only made this one record for RCA. The sound is similar to some of the other RCA vocal groups of the time, and Bert De Coteaux did the arrangements, as he did with some of the other groups. The real treat, though, is when the music drops out, and the group comes out front, which they do on the great cut "The World Is A Place", a cool moody track that's been sampled at least once in the past few years. Other cuts include "Slow Funk (parts 1 & 2)", "Within Your Lifetime", "Are You Ready For This", and "Loving You". LP, Vinyl record album

Trippy late 60s pop from Peter Sarstedt – almost folk-rock, but with a fuller, more mind-bending style that kind of recalls Donovan, or the host of other less-remembered artists who picked up from Dylan and took things in a headier direction! The production is really wonderful – with some light arrangements from Ian Green – and titles include "I Am A Cathedral", "Stay Within Myself", "Blagged", "My Daddy Is A Millionaire", "Time Love Hope Life", and "Many Coloured Semi Precious Plastic Easter Eggs". LP, Vinyl record album

A searing set from Bedlam – a group who only ever gave the world one full album at the time, a set that stands as a great bridge between generations and styles on the UK hard rock scene! The group's most famous member is drummer Cozy Powell – the ersatz leader of the lineup – but the whole combo hits on all burners, with great lead vocals from Frank Aiello, guitar from Dave Ball, and bass from Dennis Ball – plus keyboards on the set from both Max Middleton and Felix Pappalardi – the latter of whom produced. Powell's drums are fantastic throughout – really driving the whole thing along – and Aiello comes across like some lost lead act from the glory days of the arena scene. The set features one killer break track called "Seven Long Years" – a stone jammer that begins with some great drums that break nicely into guitars – and other titles include "Believe In You", "Hot Lips", "Sweet Sister Mary", "Putting On The Flesh", "Set Me Free", and "The Beast". LP, Vinyl record album