International Recommendations September 2014

Review: First brought to the world's attention via a YouTube video posted on the Dangerous Minds blog, Khun Narin's Electric Phin band have risen from their origins playing wild, primal drone-based and percussive music as a soundtrack to the daily rituals of a small village in Thailand, through their own home-made PA system. The Phin of the band-name is a type of three-string lute, amplified by Fender pickups, and heavily affected. With the help of a blown-away Los Angeles-based producer Josh Marcy, field recordings were made of this initially sceptical troupe, and the result is sixty minutes of mesmerising trance-like rapture that exists strangely outside of place and time, resonating on a ceremonial level, yet also quite capable of showing the majority of Western 'psych' acts a few lessons on what it truly means to be psychedelic.

Review: Repress alert! The first 1000 copies of this essential Afrofunk banger couplet sold out fast... And this is equally limited. After years of hunting, the Voodoo Funk crew managed to track down Ghanaian Los Issifu himself to licence these tracks... With full blessing (and, rumour has it, talks of licensing the 1977 album they came from) both "Kana Soro" and "Idarga Bidi" have been remastered with aplomb. The former is an organ-slamming frenzy of influences while the latter is a much more dramatic, spacious affair where Issifu's vocal range and emphatic soul really come to the fore. Do not sleep on this.

Review: Regarded by many as Fela and The Africa 70's zenith, Confusion is 26 minutes of total Afrofunk immersion delivered over two sides. Gradually building - thanks largely to Tony Allen's dynamic drum work that's as delicate as it is powerful, Fela's dreamy, almost jazz-like keys and a rigid, spine-like rhythm guitar - the groove and narrative is developed with a natural sense of well-instrumented drama. A genuine classic, if your collection isn't blessed with this now is most certainly the time.

Review: Last seen presenting a retrospective of the past six years of recordings for the Staubgold label, Bogota's finest composer Eblis Alvarez returns to the Soundway label with Salvadora Robot, a rather fine fourth studio album as Meridian Brothers. Very much in line with the oddball nature of previous Meridian Brothers albums, Salvadora Robot is perhaps Alvarez's most ambitious set to date with each of the ten tracks delving deeper into the tropical rhythms of South America and twisting different Latin music styles into wild new shapes. Everything from Bossa Nova to Dominican Republic merengue via reggaeton is treated with dizzying skill by Alvarez for a most interesting album.