Some of the rarest dub work ever cut by this legendary Jamaican producer – music that originally appeared on two different records that only ever circulated in shabby TK Records 12" sleeves, often with the wrong information printed on the labels! Yet the set is every bit as seminal as the music on the Aquarius Rock collection of work from Herman Chin Loy – very late in the game for Jamaican dub, but also at a level that almost seemed to give Loy and the musicians a lot more freedom in their ways to explore and experiment in the studio! All the work was done at Herman's Aquarius Studio, with players who include Aston Family Man Barrett on bass, Mickey Chung and Willie Lindo on guitars, and Leslie Butler on keyboards. Titles include "It's Alright Dub", "Armagideon War Dub", "She's Gone Dub", "Troubled World Dub", "You'll Never Know Dub", "Song Of My Mother Dub", "Them A Fight Dub", "No Malice Me Chalice Dub", "Why Do You Idle Dub", and "The Greatest Love Dub". LP, Vinyl record album

Some of the most unusual Sun Ra material of the 80s – a series of performances done with the Outer Space Visual Communicator – a unique instrument that mixed light and music together, and created a very trippy experience for both the Arkestra and the audience! Most of these tracks have never been heard before – only two have appeared on a video – and together, they showcase a really unique experiment for Ra – which is really saying something, given how experimental Sun Ra could be with his music! The package was put together in collaboration with the inventor of the OVC, and titles include "Calling Planet Earth", "Sunset On The Nile", "Love In Outer Space", "Theme Of The Stargazers", "East Of The Sun", "Saturn Rings", and "El Is A Sound Of Joy" – plus a very long take of "Discipline 27-II". LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic addition to the John Coltrane catalog, and a set that's wonderful for so many different reasons it's hard to fit them all in one short passage! As the title implies, the album features a rare live performance of "Love Supreme" – done in 1965, when the work was new both to the world, and the classic Coltrane quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. Yet the version here is also very different than the album reading – looser, with more "interlude" passages – at a level that already has the group drinking in the spirit of the tune, and finding a way to rise with a new spiritual majesty! Another key part of the recording is the presence of Pharoah Sanders on tenor – making a very early appearance with the group – amidst a septet lineup that also features a very young Carlos Ward on alto, and Donald Rafael Garrett on bass – players who expand the lineup in ways that show some of Coltrane's growing experiments past the quartet structure. The whole thing was recorded at the Penthouse Club in Seattle – a place that's given us some other fantastic "lost" recordings from the 60s in recent years – and the record is essential listening, even if you own the studio Love Supreme record, or any other Coltrane records at all. LP, Vinyl record album

A wonderful set of unreleased Arthur Russell songs – great tunes that he cut in more of an eclectic singer-songwriter approach than some of his other work – emotionally upfront, understated material that is simply beautiful! The songs range from very stripped down and folksy on the earlier recordings – kind of like an East Village Townes Van Zandt (we s**t you not) with Arthur singing and playing acoustic guitar and occasionally his cello – with an intuitive, true understanding of folk and Americana at its most honest and direct, while still working in some avant flourishes. As the set and the years of recording progress, the accompaniment gets busier and more pop, soul and experimental sounds are filtered in – but the song-based approach carries all the way through. For a noted perfectionist and experimentalist, it's a really unfussy batch of material, and very rewarding. Highly recommended! Tracks include "Close My Eyes", "Goodbye Old Paint", "Maybe She", "Oh Fernanda Why", "Eli", "Habit Of You", "Janine", "Big Moon", "The Letter", "Your Motion Says", "Love Is Overtaking Me", "Planted A Thought", "Love Comes Back" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

A further fantastic pairing of drummer Karriem Riggins and production genius Madlib – a set that really seems to open up the flow of both musicians, with a vibe that's deeper, richer, and more sophisticated than most they've given us in the past – quite a claim, considering the great legacy involved! The record's a great illustration of the way that jazz-meets-hip hop sets have evolved since the earliest days of experiments on Stones Throw and other labels – handled with a real love and understanding of jazz deepened by Madlib's years of creating amazing sounds – and served with a continued crisp crackle from Riggins' inventive work on drums! Titles include "Massamba Afundance", "The Clappers Cousin", "Anointed Soul", "All Things", "Otis' Tambourine", and "JMU's Voyage". LP, Vinyl record album

A well-done look at London's V4 Visions label – a small but important label on the underground scene in the early 90s – one who was close enough to the ground to pick up all the best styles that were taking place at the time! British soul had a bit step forward at the end of the 80s, and had even entered the American mainstream with a few key acts – but there was still plenty of experimentation taking place underground – new takes on American styles, interwoven with new jungle modes from London – and sometimes even with the grittier electro quality of street soul of the decade before! You'll hear all that and more here, served up in the usual well-done Numero style – normally reserved for older soul music labels, but very well suited here to V4 – on titles that include "What's This World Coming To" by Ashaye, "Just Dreaming" by Julie Stapleton, "The Way I Love You" by Rohan Delano, "I'm Believing In Love Again" by Maureen Mason, "Get Off That" by The Wades, "All The Way (guitar mix)" by Julie Stapleton with Ashaye, "Endangered Species" by Endangered Species, "Joy In The Jungle" by Jungle Biznizz, "Inflight" by Rohan Delano, "Fantasy (insight mix)" by Insight with Ashaye, "Just A Memory" by Endangered Species, and "If This Is A Dream" by Maureen Mason. LP, Vinyl record album

Lyrical magic from pianist Ryo Fukui – a lost gem from the Japanese scene of the 70s, and a beautifully flowing album throughout! Fukui's got a wide-open touch to the piano that we totally love – and is easily one of the best of his contemporaries on the Japanese trio scene of the time – working in the open-ended mode that was allowed by labels in Tokyo during the 70s, a style that was never too far outside, but which really allowed the pianist to soar with a driving, rhythmic intensity. There's a bit of a modal groove to some of the tracks on the album, but more than that, there's just a beautiful sense of freedom – a love of sound and texture that's never reduced to mere experimentation, and which has Ryo taking full command of the keys to soar to the skies on waves of acoustic soul. The group on the set features Yoshinori Fukui on drums and Satoshi Denpo on bass – and tracks include "I Want To Talk About You", "Scenery", "Autumn Leaves", "Early Summer", and "It Could Happen To You". LP, Vinyl record album

Lyrical magic from pianist Ryo Fukui – a lost gem from the Japanese scene of the 70s, and a beautifully flowing album throughout! Fukui's got a wide-open touch to the piano that we totally love – and is easily one of the best of his contemporaries on the Japanese trio scene of the time – working in the open-ended mode that was allowed by labels in Tokyo during the 70s, a style that was never too far outside, but which really allowed the pianist to soar with a driving, rhythmic intensity. There's a bit of a modal groove to some of the tracks on the album, but more than that, there's just a beautiful sense of freedom – a love of sound and texture that's never reduced to mere experimentation, and which has Ryo taking full command of the keys to soar to the skies on waves of acoustic soul. The group on the set features Yoshinori Fukui on drums and Satoshi Denpo on bass – and tracks include "I Want To Talk About You", "Scenery", "Autumn Leaves", "Early Summer", and "It Could Happen To You". LP, Vinyl record album

To most ears, trumpeter Jon Hassell first burst on to the world through his experiments with Brian Eno on EG Records, or maybe his 80s work on ECM – but here, on his debut for the small avant label Lovely Music, it's clear that Jon's already in complete control of his sound – and is ready to become the kind of performer that would captivate listeners for decades to come! Hassell's horn has that special sort of effect quality on most numbers here – spacey, but never slick – and electrified, but far from any sort of Miles Davis mode – especially considering that the music is full of earthy, organic percussion from Nana Vasconcelos and some other players, who balance out the set's work on Fender Rhodes, Arp, and Serge synthesizer. The spirit of the set is very much in Hassell's classic "fourth world" recordings – and titles include "Toucan Ocean", "Hex", "Blues Nile", "Vernal Equinox", and "Caracas Night September 11, 1975". LP, Vinyl record album

A sublime album from The Insect Trust – a really unique group who blend folk rock, jazz, and some nice trippy Eastern overtones! The style's really a great product of the time – a cross-cultural late 60s session recorded with a freedom from labels and categories – featuring instrumentation that includes bottleneck guitar, soprano recorder, kalimba, banjo, and a rich array of percussion – all in support of lead vocals from the lovely Nancy Jefferies. The sound is wonderful – experimental, but always tuneful – and titles include "The Skin Game", "Special Rider Blues", "Miss Fun City", "Declaration Of Independence", "Mountain Song", and "Going Home". LP, Vinyl record album

Incredibly lovely piano and vocals from Thandi Ntuli – served up here with lots of special touches from spiritual master Carlos Nino – who helped create the proceedings as a very organic meeting of minds and hearts on the shores of sunny California! Thandi's got a soulful way of both playing and singing – the latter often in a non-lyrical way, so that the vocals are more these chants that flow out with a very spiritual vibe – often cyclical, and elliptical, and mixed with these warm piano lines and a bit of keyboards. Carlos adds in percussion and cymbals (plus "plants" – we're not sure how he did that) – and also recorded the album and shaped the sound in a very lovely way. The music is mostly improvised, but very melodic, and extremely personal – one of the most soulful projects we've heard from Nino in years. Titles include "The One", "Voice & Tongo Experiment", "Sunset In California", "Rainbow Revisited", "Breath & Synth Experiment", "Sunrise In California", and "Piano Edit (orig mix)". LP, Vinyl record album

Incredibly lovely piano and vocals from Thandi Ntuli – served up here with lots of special touches from spiritual master Carlos Nino – who helped create the proceedings as a very organic meeting of minds and hearts on the shores of sunny California! Thandi's got a soulful way of both playing and singing – the latter often in a non-lyrical way, so that the vocals are more these chants that flow out with a very spiritual vibe – often cyclical, and elliptical, and mixed with these warm piano lines and a bit of keyboards. Carlos adds in percussion and cymbals (plus "plants" – we're not sure how he did that) – and also recorded the album and shaped the sound in a very lovely way. The music is mostly improvised, but very melodic, and extremely personal – one of the most soulful projects we've heard from Nino in years. Titles include "The One", "Voice & Tongo Experiment", "Sunset In California", "Rainbow Revisited", "Breath & Synth Experiment", "Sunrise In California", and "Piano Edit (orig mix)". LP, Vinyl record album

You gotta love a hip hop album that begins with an Alice Coltrane sample – and The Specifics follow suit with plenty more other jazzy bits too – almost evoking an old Tribe Called Quest generation with they way they use key samples, but also doing so at a level that's very understated too – light years from some of the earliest "jazz meets hip hop" experiments that now sound a bit embarrassing! This is definitely a hip hop album first, but one that has a great ear for jazz – used at a level that both links the old school and more contemporary efforts that sometimes tend to bury the lead, a mistake these guys avoid in a great way. Titles include "Lampin", "Look Alive", "L City", "My Tunes", "Life's Work", "Let's Get", and "You". LP, Vinyl record album

Some of the most beautiful work ever recorded by Caetano Veloso – an album that carries on the style of English language lyrics used on his session in exile in 1971, but which also introduces him back to the world of Brazilian popular music! The album's a great transition for Veloso – a set that's served up with some of the newly personal qualities his music developed in London, but which still has a good ear for experimentation and keeping things interesting. Titles include the wonderful "Nine Out Of Ten" – a haunting tune about his time in exile – plus "Neolithic Man", "Nostalgia", "Triste Bahia", "It's A Long Way", and "You Don't Know Me". LP, Vinyl record album

Some of the most haunting music we've ever heard from spiritual minimalist La Monte Young – a set that was issued on his own small label at the end of the 60s, as a series of duets with his wife, Marian Zazeela – who's a heck of a creative force on the album! The set's got plenty of the longspun passages we love in Young's music – but with much more of a focus on trance-like vocals, handled by both Young and Zazeela, as they deliver these sonorous chant-like passages that build slowly alongside electronics – going in and out of phase like some of the best minimal experiments of the time, but with a much earther, personal sort of approach. LP, Vinyl record album

Veronique Chalot sings in French, but she cut this beautiful album for the Materiali Sonori label in Italy – with a really groundbreaking mix of styles that definitely loves up to the other gems we love on the label at the time! As you might guess from the cover, Veronique plays dulcimer, and sings in a dreamy style that befits her image on the front – but the small group behind her also brings in all sorts of other unusual instrumentation – flutes, percussion, bass, and violin – used in these eerie ways alongside Chalot's moody vocals – creating a vibe that's somewhere between early solo work by Nico, and the soundtrack to Wicker Man! A really haunting record throughout – a lot like the best experiments on the Saravah label – with titles that include "L'Empoisonneusse", "Chant De La Montagne", "Le Souliers De La Belle", "Danse Des Sorcieres", "Chant De La Mer", "An Dro-Ronde", and "Bourree". LP, Vinyl record album

A great mixture of organic ideas and electric sounds from Japanese pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura – a set that follows the cycle of "green" through a progression of really lovely little instrumentals – somewhere between the minimalist experiments of Brian Eno in the late 70s, and some of the other Japanese electronic music of the time – but with this special quality that really makes the album a cut above the rest! The overall style is a bit hard to peg – this isn't electronic rock or computer pop, but it's also not highbrow minimalism better – a really special set of sounds on titles that include "Sleep", "Sheep", "Creek", "Feel", "Green", and "Teevee". LP, Vinyl record album

The sound here is wonderful – a combination of elements from players we already love, but in a different way than some of their other records! One of the most distinct elements of the set comes from the work of Per Texas Johansson – who plays a variety of clarinets throughout, and evokes a sense of postwar modernism, especially as he combines with the vibes of Matthias Stahl – which are every bit as delightful here as on other records, yet again nicely different. Ingebrigt Haker Flaten has a lot more space and gentle swing than usual – and we're guessing a lot of credit for the record goes to the work of drummer Konrad Agnas – whose open style on the kit only seems to increase the sense of late 50s modernist experimentation on the record. Titles include "Slow", "Gone", "Tea", "Foolin", "Skin", "Deep", and "All". LP, Vinyl record album

A great mixture of organic ideas and electric sounds from Japanese pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura – a set that follows the cycle of "green" through a progression of really lovely little instrumentals – somewhere between the minimalist experiments of Brian Eno in the late 70s, and some of the other Japanese electronic music of the time – but with this special quality that really makes the album a cut above the rest! The overall style is a bit hard to peg – this isn't electronic rock or computer pop, but it's also not highbrow minimalism better – a really special set of sounds on titles that include "Sleep", "Sheep", "Creek", "Feel", "Green", and "Teevee". LP, Vinyl record album

A stunning debut from Doomcannon – a set that's billed as a love letter to his native London, and which bristles with the best sort of experimental energy of that city's contemporary scene! As with work from some of his contemporaries, Doomcannon has a way of taking jazz roots and pushing them way past conventional generic descriptions – handling most of the instruments here himself, in a blend of acoustic and electric elements – soaring drums one minute, a found sound the next, echoed by a moody keyboard line, or a dreamy trumpet solo – and opening the door to so many other elements along the way! Very much in the spirit of Chicago experiments from International Anthem, too – with titles that include "Thesis", "Amalgamation", "Black Liberation", "This Too", "Times", "Dark Ages", and "Entrance To The Unknown". LP, Vinyl record album

A record that nicely combines the two different sound library sides Egisto Macchi – his scene setting ability with a lovely melody, and his deeper darker experiments on the further reaches of sound! The album's got a cover that belies its complexity – and within, you'll definitely hear Eastern melodies and instrumentation that echo the title – but mixed with some more complicated sonic elements that make the whole thing very different than just another travelogue-styled recording! Macchi has this amazing way of bringing out all these moody tones, even when things are tuneful – and the album's got this sense of complexity that's wonderful, even when the tunes seem to come across as more straightforward. Titles include "Luci Dei Traffico", "Ceylon", "La Citta Sacra", "Il Budda", "Corsa Nella Giungla", "Pescatori Di Ceylon", and "Raccolta Del The". LP, Vinyl record album

A really unique album from Yugoslavian group Angel's Breath – one recorded in Brazil, which might come as no surprise, given that one of the members of the duo is Mitar Subotic Suba – who you'll also know from his groundbreaking album Sao Paulo Confessions! Suba got his start in Serbia, but was crucial in the Brazilian advances in the 90s before his too-early death in 1999 – and the record's definitely got some of the same appeal as the best music of the scene from Chico Science or Arnaldo Antunes – especially in the way it uses offbeat guitar lines, crispy electronics, and unusual rhythms next to lyrics that often feel as poetically experimental as they are tuneful! The whole thing's very difficult to describe, but that really gives it a hell of a lot of charm – and if it were not for the turmoil in Yugoslavia at the time, the set might have seen bigger global attention from the same cultural scene who were embracing Brazilian experiments of the period. Titles include "Madalena", "Velvet", "Caura", "Assassino", "Aplauzi", "40 Seconds Of Love", and "Metak". LP, Vinyl record album