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A deft blend of club grooves and melodic soul from Rasmus Faber – keeping the sounds ready for the dancefloor, but inflecting them with a deeper resonance thanks to a nice roster of guest vocalists – and more of a song based approach than we were expecting! A strong set of material with jazzy flourishes of horn and some string arrangements, with guests including Linda Sunblad, Emily McEwan, Clara Mendes, Dyanna Fearon and others. Titles include "Everything Is Alright" feat Linda Sunblad, "Give It To Me" feat Dyanna Fearon, "Na Minha Terra" feat Clara Mendes, "Everytime We" feat Clara Mendes, "Always" feat Linda Sunblad, "Never Figure Out" feat Emily McEwan, "No Nmore Falling" feat Duanna Fearon, "Traveller Toccata", "Where We Belong" and more. CD

An incredibly dense book on the psychedelic scene of the 60s – a huge volume that not only looks at an impressive array of music, but also the wider trippy culture, too – but all with a level of text that goes far beyond most of the thinner volumes on the period! Many of the chapter titles refer to key musical texts, but then quickly extrapolate from those moments – soaring out from "I Am The Blackgold Of The Sun", "The Greta Garbo Home For Wayward Boys & Girls", and "Painting With Light" – and looking at psychedelia on both sides of the Atlantic in the 60s, with lots of surprising insights along the way. Despite a very vivid cover, the book itself is all text, no images – a hefty 638 pages, hardcover, and a very deep read! Book

You'll know Billy Bragg as a singer/songwriter, but he's also a surprisingly strong historian and author here – giving us a vivid look at the rise of skiffle bands on the UK scene at the end of the 50s! Skiffle was something that never played as strongly on our shores, but was inspired by American blues and folk – influences that younger UK artists used to create raw acoustic music that was heavy on rhythm, and a great contrast to the overproduced pop of England's post-war years! Long before the Beatles and the Stones, skiffle bands were the hippest things going in the British underground – and Billy Bragg does a great job of tracing the movement and showing its impact – something that's long overdue in the annals of music writing that's often too America-centric on the influences of British rockers in the 60s. 431 pages, hardcover, with some black and white images. Book

An unusual group, working here live – a lineup that features Billy Cobham on drums, George Adams on tenor, Johannes Faber on trumpet, Joerg Reiter on piano, and Thomas Stabenow on bass! All tracks are nice and long, too. LP, Vinyl record album

That's Loos/Armstrong, not Louis Armstrong – a late 90s Dutch group who improvise freely on both electric and acoustic elements – with a style that makes the record one of the most offbeat albums ever released on the Okka Disk label! In some ways, the combo almost tie together Dutch traditions of free jazz and electronic experimentation – with a lineup that features Gerald Bowhuis on piano, Huib Emmer on guitar, Johan Faber on drums, Patricio Wang on bass and guitar, and Dennis Rudge on voice – plus leader Peter Van Bergen on tenor, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and some mighty cool electronics! At times, the use of voice adds almost a no wave element to the set – and on the set, Rudge reads from Sun Ra's "Endless Realm" , and "Amooooore", a 1916 text from Volt – on titles that include "FTE 1", "FA5 1", "FA 3", and "FL 1". CD

Leave it to Kenny to come up with the definitive guide to upfront house – as his talents are some of the biggest in the dancefloor business, and there's few others skilled with the ears to choose such a set! The package features a total of 30 tracks – all mixed back to back by Kenny, but in a style that more than preserves the original structure of the tunes. The set's got lots of tracks that bear Kenny's imprint in one way or another, plus others chosen to fit nicely in the groove! Tracks include "Ever After" by Rasmus Faber, "Can't Get Away" by Mood II Swing, "Frenzy" by Kenny Dope, "I'll House You (Kenny Dope special)" by The Jungle Brothers, "I Got Rhythm" by Vee, "Relax Unwind (MAW rmx)" by Mark De Clive-Lowe with Abdul Syllon, "Can't Stop" by Real People with Angela Johnson, "I Can't Believe I Loved Her (Calypso rmx)" by Peven Everett, and "Somebody New (MAW rmx)" by Georg Levin. CD

A great full-length set from Kenichi Yanai – an artist we've known from his many remixes and compilations under the Soul Source Productions banner – stepping out here (almost) as an artist on his own! The album's a buoyant batch of Japanese soul that resonates strongly with the previous Soul Source groove – a mix of soulful house, jazzy club, and a few mellower tracks that round out the record nicely – giving the whole thing a depth that goes way beyond previous Soul Source remixes, a maturity and sense of cohesion we really didn't expect! Guests include Monday Michiru, Yannah Valdevit, Rasmus Faber, Captain G, and Ollie – and titles include a great remake of Stevie Wonder's "The Real Thing", plus "Betty", "Inside Outside", "Busy", "Up For More", "Growing", "Floating Day", "Snowflakes", "In My Sleep", and "Mind Be Free". CD

Raw grooves from the Jamaican scene of the pre-reggae years – served up here in a blend of early ska, jump up soul, and other jazzy styles of the time – all handled by Sonia Pottinger, who was the first female producer on the Kingston scene! There's a nice mix of modes going on here, and the album's a great contrast to some of the more famous Jamaican records of the time – as it really shows the criss-crossing of Caribbean influences that was still filtering into the scene, even while things were coming together with a decidedly local groove. Trumpeter Baba Brooks is one of the standouts here – and works with his group on the tracks "Mosquito Jump Up", "First Session", "Bugle Boy", "Faberge", and "Ki Salavoca" – alongside other tracks that include "Hold Your Head In Front" by Joe White & Chuck, "By The Sea" by The Saints, "Heartaches" by The Techniques, and "What Must I Say" by Claudell Clarke. LP, Vinyl record album