Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden... (Constellation Records)
Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… is the latest instalment in composer, improviser, saxophonist, and visual artist Matana Roberts’ visionary project exploring African-American history through ancestry, archive and place. Weaving together elements of jazz, avant-garde composition, folk and spoken word, Roberts tells the story of a woman in their ancestral line, who died following complications from an illegal abortion.
Mats Gustafsson - Hidros 9 Mirrors (Trost Records)
Conducted by Mats Gustafsson for two 9 piece chamber ensembles, 4 soloists, tape machine, turntable
Mike Cooper - L'Inhumaine (self-released)
This release is the result of a commissioned work from the University of Venice for a live soundtrack for the 1924 French drama-science fiction film directed by Marcel L’Herbier,
L’Inhumaine. "My soundtrack for the original live performance in Venice was based on the rhythms heard here but I have re-worked them and added what would have been improvised during that live screening adding treated lap steel guitar and small synthesisers hoping to ‘make the light sing’."
Nihiloxica - Source of Denial (Crammed Discs)
Source of Denial is the second LP from Nihiloxica, the Bugandan techno outfit hailing from Kampala, Uganda. It comes after more than three long years since Kaloli, their acclaimed debut on Crammed Discs. The album points a (middle) finger at the hostile immigration and freedom of movement policies implemented in the UK, as well as across the world. Fuelled by their frustrations with this intentionally convoluted system, the group have produced their most cataclysmic effort to date.
Pharoah Sanders - Pharoah (Luaka Bop)
This record’s origin story is as elusive as Pharoah himself. It was born out of a misunderstanding between Pharoah and the India Navigation producer Bob Cummins, and was recorded with a group of musicians so unlikely that they were never all in the same room again. There was the guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, who would go on to become a spiritual guru, the organist Clifton “Jiggs” Chase, who would leave jazz to take a job at Sugar Hill Records, where he would co-write and produce “The Message” for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Bedria Sanders, Pharoah’s wife at the time and a classically trained pianist, who would play the harmonium on this record even though she had never seen a harmonium before.
Steven Stapleton / Tony Wakeford - Revenge of the Selfish Shellfish (Nihilist Records)
Steven Peter Stapleton is an English musician who is best known as the only constant member of experimental improv outfit Nurse with Wound. The music swerves between Stapleton’s crooked surrealism and Wakeford’s more song orientated approach but never settles on either of the duo’s respective styles.
Vumbi Dekula - Congo Guitar (Sing-A-Song Fighter / Hive Mind Records)
Hive Mind and Sing-A-Song Fighter present their first collaborative release, the solo guitar album from legendary Congolese guitarist Kahanga Dekula aka Vumbi. This record comes after more than 40 years of playing lead guitar in numerous great bands and orchestras. Vumbi, who now lives in Sweden, is one of Europe's greatest ambassadors for Congolese music, has got a special story to tell and he uses his magnificent, infectious guitar playing to do so.
