Strut US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Beckie Bell's 1980 debut has long circulated in fragments i a 12" here, a collector's tip there. This full reissue by Strut gathers it all in one place. Recorded after Bell's move from New York to Paris, it offers a studio-built vision of disco shaped by session musicians and arranged with subtlety. 'Super Queen' sets the tone with its patient build and clipped vocal phrasing. 'So Many Ways' and 'Magic Lady' follow a slower logic, driven more by mood than immediacy. 'Music Madness', the record's most played track, draws attention with its syncopated synths and layered percussion, though its energy remains low-slung. Bell's voice rarely reaches for spectacle. Her lines sit just above the groove, steady and self-assured. On 'Johnnies Home' and 'What You Need I Can Bring', there's no need for dramatic turns i the performances work because nothing is pushed. The reissue comes with a clean remaster by The Carvery and includes contributions from Arthur Young, Patrick Cowley and Jacob Desvarieux. What emerges is not a lost classic but something quieter: a well-assembled record with a clear internal logic, shaped by a moment where disco didn't yet need to shout.

Review: Captured over two nights in August 1970, Sun Ra's landmark sets at Fondation Maeght mark his first performances outside North America and document one of the Arkestra's most potent live iterations. Set in a modern art gallery in southern France, the concerts land Ra, John Gilmore, Marshall Allen and co. amid a cross-disciplinary festival alongside Albert Ayler and LaMonte Young, and show the Arkestra in full visionary flight. 'Love In Outer Space' and 'Shadow World' blend ritual chant, sci-fi groove and volcanic improvisation, while 'Cosmic Explorer' and 'Spontaneous Simplicity' show the group folding modal jazz into galactic swing and freeform abstraction. Organ blasts, interstellar percussion, surreal monologues and projections of Egyptian gods and rockets made this a total work. Caux's recollections of stunned audiences match the recordings' scale: volatile yet tightly bound, cosmic but rooted in Black American avant-garde traditions. This new Strut edition spans four CDs and adds extensive liner notes and restored photos by Philippe Gras, pulling the Maeght nights from myth into focus. It's not a mere live document - more like a transmission, decoded decades later. If Ra was right that "space is the place," this is one of its clearest signals.