Cool reissue of a bunch of key sessions from ‘Mississippi’ Fred McDowell, who was discovered in 1959 by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins. This album was originally issued under the name Fred McDowell – Volume 2 on Arhoolie and features material drawn from four sessions across 1964-65. Track listing is choice, with “I Ain’t Gonna Be Bad No More”, “Where Were You”, “I Looked At The Sun”, “Do My Baby Ever Think Of Me”, “Brooks Run Into The Ocean”, “Bull Dog Blues”, “I Walked All The Way From East St. Louis”, “Red Cross Store Blues”, “Gravel Road Blues”, “Frisco Lines”, “You Got To Move”, “I Wish I Was In Heaven Sittin’ Down”.  

Great reissue of a major obscurity in the back catalogue of Fred and Toody Cole aka Dead Moon/The Rats et al. Range Rats were a post-punk country and western group that used a Roland drum machine, confusing timelines and genres so completely that it couldn’t really be anyone else. Fred Cole is one of the great rock vocalists and it’s a stone pleasure to hear that voice wrap ping itself around some downer country and outlaw balladry, all played with the primitive elan and feel for non-flashy rock/roll aesthetics of Dead Moon et al. From 1985. Recommended.

Beautifully presented 10” set that collects legendary outsider artist/folk spirit Abner Jay’s last recordings. This is a very powerful performance from Jay, singing in an even more lonesome and forlorn style than on his earlier recordings, and with a feel of pathos and heartbreak that would outdo any soul singer. His harmonica playing is also inspired and the songs stagger along with alla the dark pneumatic appeal of VU-plays-Diddley. Hard to think of anyone else outside of Arthur Doyle with such a mainline to the real people source of American blues and free music. Track listing is choice, featuring “I Cried”, “Sitting On Top Of The World”, “My Middle Name Is The Blues”, “Love Wheel”, “Cocaine Blues” and “Too Poor To Live, Too Poor To Die”. The cover photo features a great snap of Jay drinking from the Swanee River that was used as an alternate sleeve on some of his earlier LPs but the real gravy is the chunky booklet inside with some fantastic colour snaps and a long memorial essay by Jack Teague, a late companion of Jay’s and the person who recorded this final session live in Jay’s trailer. It’s a fantastic read, with particularly well-observed insights into Jay as a person and how he lived his life, and it puts the seal on one of the most remarkable off-the-radar careers in American music. Highly recommended. 

Irresistible, expertly compiled LP that bundles the best of the legendary Ethiopiques series of original Ethiopian and Eritrean music: this is a particularly inspired set, matching the mood of mystery and distance and celebration and sadness of the best of CDs with some almost Arkestral brass fantasias, amazing ethno garage/soul testifying, melancholy jazz, outer space percussion and some truly outside vocal stylings. If you’ve yet to take the plunge into the magical world of Ethiopiques this is the perfect ticket and if you’re already a paid-up believer this is the one-stop you’ll wanna return to again and again. Lifting tracks from volumes 1, 8 and 17 we get music by Lemma Demissew, Tlahoun Gessesse, Sefu Yohannes, Bahta Gebre-Heywet, Teshome Meteku, Mahmoud Ahmed, Lemma Demissew, Alemayehu Eshete, Bahta Gebre-Heywet and Teshome Meteku. Comes in heavy tip-on style sleeves. Recommended. 

Latest instalment in Mississippi’s winning series of reissuing classic Ethiopiques sides on vinyl: these tracks are drawn from Volume 22 and feature a bunch of 45s recorded between 1967 and 74 by Eshete, known as the ‘Ethiopian Elvis’ due to his omnivorous approach to genre (R&B, Ethiopian groove, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, traditional folk) and his modernist tendencies. As a vocalist he has a bold, declamatory approach combined with soft hypnotics that hints at Edip Akbayram’s oracular style. He has that Ancient Aethiopian/sci-fi jazz style down but it’s his weird pop/rock hybrid styles that really set the record on fire, with beautiful electric guitar-led teen weep ballads that could sulked their way out of a Northeastern garage if they weren’t quite so dust-covered and deformed by sub-Saharan echo. Another veritable time machine from this series, at your disposal, with high quality ‘tip-on’ sleeves too. 

Unlikely round-up of pre-rock/roll 78s from the other side of the world that anticipate or osmose contemporary rocking moves while mutating them well beyond the remit: this is a highly addictive collection of high energy world music that runs the gamut of re-orientalised country orientalisms, jump jazz, samisen boogie woogie, early Egyptian and Indian rock n roll, organ-stomping cumbia and hillbilly boogie. Beautifully presented too, in a cool tip-on sleeve with the kind of graphics you might wanna frame. Love this. Recommended. 

Massively unlikely unearthing of Mauritania’s first ‘modern’ musical group, recordings miraculously saved from destruction during a coup d’etat in 1978: the Orchestre formed in the 1960s and all but vanished into oblivion over the ensuing years of military dictatorship and there’s nothing left now but the recordings and they’re an absolute revelation, combing post-colonial west African orchestral traditions with lazily stoned and dreamy electric styling complete with bursts of languid fuzz guitar, somnambulant rhythms, power crying vocals, melancholy folk melodies, almost Byard Lancaster/Sonny Sharrock circa It’s Not Up To Us style guitar/flute melodicism, strange electric strings... and it’s all suffused with a palpable feel of a now-inaccessible moment in the past and an odd sense of celebratory pathos. An amazing archival find, beautifully packaged, the barest echo of a dream, comes with ‘tip-on’ sleeves, some amazing snaps and an excellent booklet with liners. Highly recommended. 

Stunning first-ever stereo recording of the “fiery choral sounds” of Sacred Harp Singing: recorded by Alan Lomax at Corinth Baptist Church in 1959, this features over 300 singers taking part in polyphonic folk hymns from The Sacred Harp compendium. The amazing mass voices move like clouds of constantly shifting overtone and have all the timeless, otherworldly beauty of Gaelic Psalm Singing, moving from martial chants to single leading voices through moments of complete vocal surrender. This one restores Lomax’s recordings with a bunch of contemporary material from the session that has never before been released. Coming with in-depth liner notes this is a historically potent packaging of some jaw-dropping devotional choral music. Recommended. 

Massive side of lost Americana dedicated to the high lonesome sound of sufferin ballads, brokedown blues and melancholy paeans to the pull of oblivion that has a heady Harry Smith/Anthology feel that’s down to the inspired associate logic with which its compiled: stellar tracks from Arthur Smith Trio, B.F. Shelton, The Carter Family (their classic, lugubrious “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?”), John Hurt, Emry Arthur, Jimmie Tarlton, Shortbuckle Roar & Family, Clarence Ashley, The Cackle Sisters, Buell Kazee, Moses Mason and Bascom Lamar Lunsford. A fantastic set and a timely reminder of the weird lunar appeal of the most lonesome American folk music. Highly recommended.

Unbeatable no-filler compilation of primo Ethiopian soul: this continues Mississippi’s public service upgrade of key volumes of the legendary Ethiopiques series of classic lost Ethiopian sides from the late 60s/early 70s and it’s all gravy, with tracks that run the gamut of weirdo modal/funk polyrhythmia, Saturnian jazz, desolate soul testifying, sad ballroom romanticism and electrified ethno grooves, all of which are rendered with that massively addictive and profoundly otherworldly laidback ‘Ethiopiques’ style. This one bundles major tracks from volumes 24 & 25 including Mulatu Astatqe’s killer title track, the amazing Tamrat Molla & Venus Band, Samuel Belay, Getatchew Kassa & Soul Ekos Band, Abbebe Tessemma and more. Highly recommended!