VOX POPULI! Vinyl & CDs

Review: Cult French outfit Vox Populi! have already put out a subversive and superb album this year back in April on Touch Sensitive. Here it is the good folk at Emotional Rescue who snap up another one in the form of Aither, which has been remastered and repackaged 30 years after it first landed. We're told it is the first of many to come in 2022 and that's good news because it's class - numerous musicians played as part of the band and traditional instrumental paired with folklore vocals make for a majestic melting pot of sound from the world of dub, funk, soul, psyche and oriental.

Review: Prepare yourself for a crazy but wonderful deep dive into the legendary world of cult French outfit Vox Populi!, focusing primarily on their 'big years' of 1986-1990, inverted commas used to hopefully articulate that these guys are yet another example of why music consistently fails to give outsider artists the widespread recognition they deserve. Nevertheless, those who know VP know just how incredible their music is.

In the first three tracks alone the breadth of their output becomes clear. Opener 'Caballo Blanco' could be And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead meeting Primal Scream at a Goan festival in the late-1960s. 'Mush Dub Gnarls & Vrooms' takes us into downtempo electronica with an undercurrent of bite, nodding to Andrew Weatherall's Sabres of Paradise project. Meanwhile, 'Holistikoholic' almost seems to reprogram the mind to the court of some king or other, with its jaunty flutes and wooden percussion.