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Review: The latest volume in Soul Jazz's Boombox series, which focuses on the formative years of hip-hop culture, delivers a notably deep dig into some of the innovative and inspired disco-rap, electro and proto-hip-hop records released by independent labels, mostly based in New York City, between 1979 and 1983. It's a genuinely eye-opening affair that boasts a mixture of little-known debut singles from now legendary acts (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Funky Four Plus One More), inspired obscurities (see 'Get Live '83', a rare recording by a Chicagoan high school band), bona-fide dancefloor gems (Mike T, Sangria, the electrofunk-rap of Silver Star), and deliciously deep cuts. Throw in Soul Jazz's usual exhaustive, expansive liner notes, and you have another essential collection from the quality compilation specialists.

Review: Last year Detroit techno stalwart Jeff Mills launched a new project, The Zanza, an ever-changing collective of jazz, Latin and electronic musicians who could help him explore his love of a wide variety of styles and genres. Following on from the project's debut release, Mills has now delivered a debut album that once again proves not only his versatility as a producer, but also the vivid, widescreen nature of his musical vision. Wonderland is not an ambient or techno album - though it does contain multiple nods to the latter - but rather a hybrid affair that draws great influence from Latin music (and samba in particular), jazz in many forms, dubbed-out electro, jazz-funk and, on the rushing 'The Time Is Tight', organ and piano-heavy gospel house.

Review: 30th Anniversary Edition of the Cure's best-selling, Grammy-nominated album 'WISH.' This deluxe 45 track edition - compiled by Robert Smith - features 24 previously unreleased tracks & 4 new to CD tracks across three discs. And that's not to mention their four tracks that appeared exclusively on the mail-order cassette 'Lost Wishes', released in 1993, which have never appeared on CD or digitally, the previously unreleased song 'A Wendy Band', a previously unheard mix of the epic fan favourite 'From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea', five rare 12" mixes, and an unheard live version of 'End' from Paris Bercy in October 1992.

Review: We all know and love Ron Trent as a house music maestro, but as his elevated productions have betrayed over the years, his chops reach well beyond the simple demands of functional club stuff. In line with his more eclectic output, What Do The Stars Say To You heralds his WARM project in a frankly stunning burst of musicality that harks back to the glory days of 70s and 80s studio prowess. This is still music driven by a groove, but it's certainly not a house by numbers affair. Instead you get soaring violin solos (from Jean Luc Ponty no less), infinte threads of nimble keys work and enough downtempo, slinky grooves to buffet a yacht from the Balearics to the Florida Keys and back again. Featuring members of Azymuth, Gigi Masin and Khruangbin amongst others, this is a return to the craft of exquisite album making, as handled by a true master in his field.

Review: Yazmin Lacey brings us a soulful release in Voice Notes, nailing the epitome of modern-day neo-soul with its vinyl crackles, boom-bap beats and vintage verbs. The Nottingham-born singer-songwriter sings songs of family, love, sleep, and late-bloomerism, across slow waltzes like 'Where Did You Go? and boxy, bedroom cuts like 'Eye To Eye'. Not the first of her greats, it follows up Black Moon, When The Sun Dips and 90 Degrees, topping off the singer's creative spell for that period.

Review: On the latest volume in the Late Night Tales series, Don Letts has dug deep into his crates to present a selection of some of his favourite dubbed-out reggae cover versions, alongside dub style remixes of more contemporary covers. It's a simple concept, brilliantly executed, with Letts offering up some exclusive, dubplate style remixes amongst the classic cuts and recent gems. Highlights include, but are in no way limited to, the full vocal dub of Capitol 1212's take on Joy Dvision's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', Mad Professor's insanely weighty 2021 dub of John Holt classic 'You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine', Blackbox Recorder's oddball reggae-soul version of 'Uptown Top Rankin' and Easy Stars All Stars' deliciously mystical interpretation of The Beatles' 'Within You Without You'.

Review: Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his 'South London Boroughs' EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many 'best of' polls. Now Burial returns with 'Untrue', a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of 'Archangel', 'Near Dark' and 'Ghost Hardware', before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where 'Burial' first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, 'Untrue' is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track 'Raver'. Forget central heating the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. 'Untrue' is available as full 13 track digipack CD, including recent underground hit 'Ghost Hardware', and 9 track DJ friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.

Review: There's a strong argument to say that those artists who make an effort to develop their sound make the very best albums. The fabulously named Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts is clearly one of those artists. Since first causing waves back in the mid 2000s, he's moved from a maker of crunchy minimalism to someone whose sound is much harder to pin down. Twice Around the Sun, his third full length, shows further signs of development. While it remains rooted in his trademark atmospheric sound - a mix of loose, organic drums, tactile synths and pleasing melodies - it stylistically moves in a myriad of directions, touching on quirky lo-fi pop, strobe light techno, curious deepness and touchy-feely downtempo bliss.

Review: Last year saw Cultures of Soul, American crate diggers extraordinaire, serve up a fine compilation of Caribbean disco, soul, and boogie in the shape of Tropical Disco Hustle. Clearly they were only getting started as a year later we find a second installment from Cultures of Soul which broadens the remit to take in the flavours of St. Lucia and Guadeloupe too. Trinidad & Tobago calypso act Wild Fire feature prominently, providing three tracks of which the Moog laden "Try Making Love" is a compilation highlight. "Music Makes The World Go Round" by The Hamilton Brothers being another, a delicious horn laden, rasping disco bumper that DJs will find a lot of mileage in. A fine compilation.

Review: Those who lived through the 1990s will happily tell you that few ambient and electronica outfits of the period could match the emotive, life-affirming majesty of Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton's Global Communication project. Transmissions, the pair's first retrospective of their work under the alias, offers plenty of supporting evidence for this view. It features painstakingly re-mastered - and, we will add, brilliant-sounding - versions of two full-length releases: 1993's Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis, a radical set of lengthy ambient "translations" of tracks by forgotten shoegaze outfit Chapterhouse, and their peerless debut album 76:14, which remains one of the greatest ambient sets of all time. Throw in a third CD featuring collected singles and remixes, and you have a thoroughly essential three-disc set.

Review: .For the 100th volume in their ongoing 'Mood Series' of albums, Greyscale has chosen to offer up something very special: a double disc set of previously unreleased "secret weapons" produced by label main man Grad_U. It's an undeniably brilliant collection all told, with the long-serving artist offering up a rich selection of deep techno and dub techno treats in his distinctive style. Highlights are plentiful and include (but are in no way limited to), the house-infused, hypnotic techno positivity of 'Run Out', the intergalactic dub techno pulse of 'Compound', the acid-flecked intensity of 'Seismic Investigations', the immersive rhythmic sound soup of 'Whispering Rails', and the melodic flutter of 'Orbital Outpost'.

Review: By now, we should all know what to expect from the popular Too Slow To Disco series, namely glassy-eyed, pitched-down disco, boogie, yacht rock, blue-eyed soul and AOR with a distinctive soft-focus flex. Naturally, there's plenty to savour on the series fourth edition, much of it either obscure or previously overlooked. Our picks of a predictably strong collection include the horn-totin', much-sampled Pleasure classic 'Nothin' To It', the lusciously loved-up cosmic soul of Prime Time Band's 'Fall in Love in Outer Space', the eyes-closed, Rhodes-sporting AOR soul of 'Stay The Night' by the Farragher Brothers, the slow release swell of Alan Price's 'Groovy Times' and the sun-splashed jauntiness of Max Leake's 'Tell Me The Reasons'.

Review: Complementing the fresh single 'Shine', released at the very same time, 'Tokyo Crossover Night 2023' is a compilation album by various artists selected by Shuya Okino, esteemed Japanese disco and broken beat DJ/producer. Kyoto Jazz Sextet, DJ Kawasaki, J.A.M and Shuya Okino himself all crop up on this veritable razzmatazzer, amounting to yet another worthy contribution to the label Village Again Japan, and the Tokyo crossover scene they occupy at large.

Review: Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, the Compton-based rapper's first album since 2012's major label debut, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, has been receiving rave reviews. In truth, it's not hard to see why. Imaginative, soulful, and blessed with the looseness of live performance (a result of the use of jazz-minded live players as much as anything else), it sounds like the kind of album that may one day be hailed as a hip-hop classic. Sure, there are big name guests - Dre, Snoop, George Clinton and Thundercat included - but the focus remains on Lamar's distinctive flow and almost cinematic tales of life on L.A's streets. Given the quality of his lyrics, that's no bad thing.

Review: Tony Allen is on record as saying that The Source, his first album on iconic jazz label Blue Note, is the best recording he's made. Given his length of service and vast discography, that's a bold claim. Certainly, it's a fine album, with the legendary drummer and his selected musicians - mostly jazz players from Paris, plus a Cameroonian guitarist and previous Allen collaborator Damon Albarn on one cut - effortlessly blur the boundaries between Afrobeat and the kind of jazz pioneered by Allen's percussion heroes Art Blakey and Max Roach. It's a brilliant hybrid that fits Allen's unique style of drumming like a glove, and there's no doubt that the former Fela Kuti sticks-man is the real star of the show.

Review: Just when you thought all hope was lost along come The Strokes to fulfil the promises they made way, way back with their startling debut 'Is This It'. That was 17 years ago, and while the outfit have made plenty worthy of note in the years between then and now, we'd be surprised if we're the only ones thinking this latest is their best effort since that inaugural outing. Confident but also hungry, rather than bloated and lazy, there's plenty here that you won't be able to get away from in a hurry. 'Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus' might define the package best, delivering some powerful pop energy in an all-round homage to and critique of the 1980s, an era revisited again on 'Bad Decisions', which owes plenty to Billy Idol's Generation X classic, 'Dancing With Myself', with tracks like 'Why Are Sundays So Depressing' diverting to a synthdom route and 'Not The Same Anymore' throwing crooner styles into the mix. Exceptional stuff.

Review: The Alchemist and Larry June say they 'followed what felt natural' when writing this one and the results are organic and absorbing. This is the CD version of the pair's new album which finds them combine forces for this smoother than silk outing on Empire that brings the best out of both. The Alchemist is a veteran producer who has worked with a who's who of hip-hop over the years, and June is a Bay Area rapper with a real touch of class to his work. He can rap about anything from gourmet food to art, teaching people how to hustle, or whatever else.

Review: Soil & Pimp Sessions is a Japanese jazz band with an explosive sound. Made up of five musicians Shacho, Tabu Zombie, Josei on piano, Akita Goldman on bass and Midorin on drums, they are primarily an expressive live outfit who serve up rough and ready sounds that fire your every single synapse. They have been playing for 20 years now but their breakout album Pimp Master came in 2006 and saw them go on to play at Glastonbury the year after. This latest record is another exceptional one that goes from intense and complex highs to beautiful tender and vulnerable moments of calm.

Review: In 2009, longtime collaborators Frankie Knuckles and Eric Kupper made their production partnership official via the Director's Cut project. This epic retrospective gathers together the best tracks and remixes the duo completed prior to Knuckles' death in 2014. Disc one offers up original productions, including ear-catching re-makes of some of Knuckles' most famous early works (we're particularly fond of the versions of "The Whistle Song", "Your Love" and "I'll Take U There"). On the second disc you'll find the best of their remix work, with standouts including a sublime take on Candi Staton's "Hallelujah Anyway" and a storming, previously unreleased version of Lou Rawls' "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine". As a bonus, the third disc mixes the best of the lot together in one suitably gorgeous, non-stop journey.

Review: Experimental musician Leyland Kirby has been skirting round the edges of electronic music since the tail end of the '90s, delivering curious concept albums under a dizzying variety of pseudonyms (The Caretaker, The Stranger, Billy Ray Cyrix, Butcher Claws and Bored in Columbia, amongst many others). Here he dons his familiar V/VM alias for a discordant trip into drone territory supposedly inspired by fading memories of the last throes of early '90s outdoor raves. In truth, there's little in the music - a typically hissing, dystopian fusion of murky textures and becalmed electronic tones - to justify the concept, but it matters little. Kirby is a master at creating vaguely spooky, industrial-influenced soundscapes, and The Death of a Rave (A Partial Flashback) only enhances his reputation.

Review: In 1988, on the eve of the civil war that began to tear apart Somalia in the early 1990s, an intrepid band of broadcasters and journalists secretly salvaged some 10,000 cassettes of homegrown music from the archives of Radio Hargeissa in Somaliland. Almost 30 years on, those tapes have finally been mined for Sweet As Broken Dates, a brilliant compilation that finally showcases some of the multitude of gems that were recorded and released in the country between the late '60s and early '90s. It's a brilliant collection, all told, full of exotic music that combines Western styles - soul, funk, disco, pop, reggae, boogie, psychedelic rock and even early hip-hop- with musical influences from the wider region (most notably Arabic and tropical music from islands in the Indian Ocean). In other words, it should be an essential purchase.

Review: The impeccable Lithuanian label Greyscale is a real leader when it comes to dub techno and already they are racing into 2024 in fine style with a first full-length of the year from label head Grad_U! The sublime and immersive Sustain has eight larges ambient soundscapes that are detailed with field recordings from another planet. Each one is alluringly empty and beautiful, intriguing and unsettling to make for an escapist trip to another dimension. The way the producer manages to conjure up what feel like familiar emotions in such a faraway world is second to none and will leave you wanting to do it all over again the second it ends.

Review: Given his innate ability to craft intensely atmospheric and often fundamentally unsettling music, it seems apt that Thom Yorke has finally got around to producing a film soundtrack. It's fitting, too, that said soundtrack is for Luca Guadagnino's weirdo remake of 1977 Italian horror flick "Suspiria". Yorke nails the brief, delivering a string of chilling, otherworldly instrumentals that not only draw on his well-established love of dark ambient and gruesome electronica, but also foreboding neo-classical movements and sparse, wide-eyed arrangements. There are a smattering of superb vocal moments, too, with recent single "Suspirio" - described by one broadsheet reviewer as "the saddest waltz you'll ever here" - standing out.

Review: Second time around for the Bees' terrific debut album, Sunshine Hit Me, which wowed critics and buyers alike on its initial release way back in 2001. The epitome of a surprise hit with admirably DIY roots - the duo behind it, Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, famously recorded it in a limited home studio built in the back garden of a residential house on the Isle of Wight - the album has lost none of its allure all these years on. Woozy, summery and lo-fi, with hazy horns and glassy-eyed vocals rising above backing tracks that variously doff a cap to soul, rocksteady, ska, 1960s dream pop, psychedelia and a wealth of subtle global musical influences, Sunshine Hit Me is a warming, smile-inducing treat. This edition also boasts a sextet of bonus cuts, which seem to be a mixture of B-sides and tracks plucked from the pair's archives.

Review: Kyoto Jazz Sextet are an acoustic jazz 'unit' established in 2015 fronted by Shuya Okino. After their first two albums 'Mission' and 'Unity' this new third album channels only the best of what Tokyo's jazz scene has to offer, illuminating both past and present musical narratives in Japan by enlisting both new artists and legends (Takeo Moryiama appears on drums) alike.

Review: It's been a while since Soul Jazz tapped into the seemingly bottomless well that is the Studio One archives. This latest trawl through "Sir" Coxsone Dodd's landmark label focuses on the Jamaican imprint's ska output in the "downbeat" period between 1962 and 1965. It was in this period that the ska movement, reflecting Jamaica's newfound independence from the UK, truly began to find its own voice. While that alone makes Studio One Ska Fever worthy of further inspection, it's the tracklist - heavy on early scene classics such as "Freedom Sounds", "Marcus Garvey" and "Mad World", as well as lesser known gems and early works from Lee 'Scratch' Perry and the Wailers - that makes is essential listening.

Review: Waze & Oddysey's W&O Streetracks imprint pulls together the likes of Eliphino, Ejeca, Citizen and XXXY for its first (unmixed) compilation released this Winter, W&O Streettracks Vol 1. Having clocked up eight releases on Street Tracks, it's the ideal time to throw down a milestone and document the sound of the label in one package and W&O Street Tracks does so with panache. The result of Waze & Oddyssey's plunge into their address book is a 12 track compilation that neatly reflects modern house music. Ejeca, Citizen and W&O themselves sit alongside newcomers like Mediman and Sage Caswell while the emergent talents of New Jack City and Eliphino make for a nicely profiled piece of work

Review: There's no doubt that the brilliant, synthesizer-heavy soundtrack played a key part in the success of Netflix's deliciously odd thriller, Stranger Things. Written and performed by Survive members Kyle Dixon and Michael Steen, it got the right balance between John Carpenter style creepiness, Vangelis-like melodiousness, and the cinematic feel of classic movie soundtrack material. Happily, the streaming behemoth has decided to release two volumes of musical highlights from the series, beginning with this first volume. It's testament to the quality of the Texas-based duo's work that those who've not seen the series should still enjoy it. This is atmospheric, clandestine electronic music of the highest order.

Review: Gilles Peterson and Bluey's Str4ta project has always been something of a nostalgic offering, with the pair exploring their mutual love of Brit-funk, jazz-funk and dancefloor grooves of the early 1980s. Naturally, they've loosely stuck to the same winning blueprint on sophomore set 'Str4tasfear', with the addition of an impressive cast-list of collaborators, a touch more production polish and a subtly wider set of inspirations only enhancing the listening experience. The results are uniformly impressive, with our picks of a very strong bunch including the slap-bass sporting, floor-friendly brilliance of 'Turn Me Around', the Maze-esque 'Night Flight' (all squelchy electronic bass, glistening jazz guitars and colourful synthesizer solos), the sweat-soaked jazz-funk disco heaviness of 'Lazy Days' (featuring Emma-Jean Thackray) and the super-sweet 'When You Call Me'.

Review: Having previously delivered a must-have, quintuple CD retrospective of African Head Charge's influential albums, On-U-Sound has wisely decided to give the same treatment to Slits singer Ari Up and Adrian Sherwood's equally as influential New Age Steppers project - an outfit whose rotating cast of guest musicians included a string of British post-punk greats. Discs one to four showcase, in sequence, the collective's spaced-out, often experimental dub albums released between 1980 and 2012 (The New Age Steppers, Action Battlefield, Foundation Steppers and Love Forever). The fifth and final disc, subtitled Avant Gardening, gathers together rare dubs, unreleased tracks and "version excursions" from the archives. Throw in extensive sleeve notes from Oli Warwick telling the story of the project and you have a nigh on essential boxset.

Review: Boom: three years, three albums. No biggie for Bristol duo The Allergies, Jalapeno's biggest success story since Kraak & Smaak. Each album shows them getting deeper into the groove, creeping away from the cheeky samples and sculpting their own pedigree funk originals. With Ugly Ducking Andy Cooper onside through the mix from the wild ride vibing "Fade Away" to the white knuckle lyrical fire of "Run It Back", there's a real band feeling to the whole album as familiar voices thread throughout the jams... including that of UK hip hop legend Dr Syntax.

Review: This is well known and much-loved ambient album amongst those who follow the genre closely, and after various vinyl formats before now, it finally arrives on CD courtesy of Past Inside the Present. The hugely prolific zake - who often releases several albums a year - and 36 really go deep on this one. It is a quietly epic and certainly adventurous journey into outer space where echoing sonic tones and drifting sound effects all melt into one another as electronic melodies arrive and disappear to soothing effect. There is an almost classical architecture to these grandiose tracks which makes it all the more of an absorbing and beautiful listen.

Review: For the latest volume in their essential Spiritual Jazz compilation series - the eleventh overall - Jazzman has decided to take a trawl through the archives of Danish imprint SteepleChase, focusing specifically on "esoteric modal" and "progressive jazz" originally released between 1974 and '84. It's an impressively bright, breezy and crystal-clear affair - you can hear every cymbal hit, saxophone solo, piano note, snare and rim-shot in glorious clarity - with highlights appearing thick and fast throughout. Our current favourites include the haunting flutes, glistening guitar solos and skipping grooves of Rene McLean's "Aida", the hard-to-pigeonhole inventiveness and cross-cultural fusion of Jim McNeely's "Tipe Tizwe" and the vibraphone-laden up-tempo hustle of Khan Jamal's "Dark Warrior". That said, every track is superb, making this a must-have for spiritual jazz enthusiasts everywhere.

Review: You might know Airto Moreira and Flora Purim as the King and Queen of Brazilian Jazz and for good reason. They have spent more than the last half decade putting out some of their homeland's finest and most richly rewarding jazz albums as well as playing exhilarating live shows all over the world. They have found favour with jazz lovers everywhere as a result, from Japan's concert halls to the UK's jazz-funk scenes. If You Will was their last album back in 2022 and it got a Grammy, and now A Celebration: 60 Years - Sounds, Dreams & Other Stories brings together some of their best work from over the last 60 odd years. Essential stuff.

Review: "Sound Space Variations" is a delicate and restrained sound bath. A mix of atmospheric, suspenseful drone sounds and meditative aspects. It is an album made for those moments when we just are.

zake has managed to capture the moments that lie between sounds; the unagitated murmurs and atmospheric hisses. The artist connects this in-between-world and our earthly one with calm and sonorous scores, making us think about everything and nothing.

The six pieces on the record do not seem heavy-headed or overloaded but much more airy, wide and open for interpretations. They stimulate the imagination - in a wonderfully unbiased way. In the last track. James Bernhard mixed and mastered the album, written and produced by drone artist zake, at Ambient Mountain House Studio. zake himself provided the artwork and photos himself."

Review: Theo Parrish's masterful Sound Sculptures Vol 1 on triple LP format gets a timely repressing!! In total here there are 9 of the 27 tracks from the full double CD version but these still run the gamut of Theo's inimitable talents, from rough and tumble disco edits to saccharine soul, raw beatdown and leftfield esoterica. Be sure to check the Omar S- featuring "Synthetic Flemm" and long time Juno favourite "Flotation Device". If ever there was a selection of tracks that fully showcased the incredible breadth of production talent this man has, this is it. Not to be missed!

Review: Although renowned for the quality of their soul and jazz-funk reissues, Expansion continues to champion contemporary soulful music - something the label has tried to do from the very start of its existence. For proof, check their annual Soul Togetherness compilations, which astonishingly have appeared every year for the last two decades. There's natural plenty of killer modern soul and 21st century R&B gems to be found on 2020's edition of the popular series, with highlights including the slick '80s soul revivalism of DW3's 'Never Gonna Stop', the smooth soulful house warmth of Will Downing's 'Right Where You Are', the early '80s boogie flex of Cool Million's 'Keep On', the sparking '70s disco heat of Privat Projekt's 'Don't Walk This Way' and the head-nodding positivity of Carmichael Musiclover's 'Pure Sweetness'.

Review: First released way back in 2005, Soul Jazz Records' tribute to the female artists and vocalists who recorded at the legendary Studio One studio in Kingston, Jamaica, returns on CD for a limited time. It's a compilation that's well worth picking up, for two equally valid reasons. Firstly, it features some of Jamaica's greatest female solo singers and vocal groups - the likes of Marcia Griffiths, the Soulettes, Angela Prince and Jennifer Lara. Secondly, the mix of styles on offer - not just rocksteady and roots reggae, but also dub, ska and disco-reggae - delivers an enjoyable lesson in the vibrancy of Jamaican music during the 60s and '70s. Throw in a chunky booklet packed with insightful liner notes, and you have a genuinely must-have compilation.

Review: It wasn't so long ago we were writing about the joys of BVDUB's Fumika Fades, a new double pack in February that sunk us deep into moving ambient soundscapes. Now the Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey is back once again with yet another album - he dropped plenty of them last year too so is clearly in a mad creative patch. Slowly Shifting Lakes comes in multiple formats, this one being a double CD. The ambient here is coarse and textured, fizzing synths stretching out over skittish rhythmic frameworks before sinking into calmer waters on cuts like the escapist 'Searching For Glowing Shores.' Another triumphant album for sure.