Solo guitar. Interpretations of Monk’s Ugly Beauty and the standard My Ideal, plus six original compositions including a tune he recorded with Tortoise in 1998, and four totally new, loop-driven works , layering melodic improvisation and electronic textures.

Scorcher!
Rothadam aka Errol Gayle tried out for Bunny Lee before following his brothers from Trenchtown to Toronto in the early-1970s. Here, his fellow-welder Sid Lovejoy also ran a record shop, label and studio, at 917 Bathurst Street; and in 1975 the first iteration of Rebel was unleashed on Sid’s LMP imprint (cut a little slower than this reissue), featuring none other than Leroy Sibbles on bin-wobbling bass; and massive, rearing, swinging horns (and melodica). The brass brings to mind the Otravis crew on Skyjack Version, also with Sibbles, for Half Moon; the hi-hats tick with the same serious-mindedness as at the start of Joe Higgs’ Creation; Rothadam channels Horace Andy to full effect.
Then Gayle reprised the song at Half Moon itself, with the Super Eight Corporation. Producer Oswald Creary passed the second recording — side two here — onto Ron Lewis, to put out on Ron-Lew. It’s more Upsetters in style, with a lighter touch; more limber, smoke-filled and cosmic, with a vibesing spoken intro and tasty percussion.
Both sides are raw, intense, inspiring roots.
Neither came with a dub… so dream on, rudie.
Hotly recommended.

Their classic blend of Afro-Cuban rhythms, Wolof griot traditions, mbalax, Congolese rumba and jazz; led by saxophonist Issa Sissokho and guitarist Barthélémy Attiso. Future icon of Senegalese salsa, the young singer Médoune Diallo tears up the irresistible, driving Autorail, about the new railway line linking Dakar and Niamey.

A masterwork of Senegalese montuno, better known as Mouhamadou Bamba, from 1981, the same year as Si Bou Odja.

The frankly sexual, lithely grooving deep-house classic from 1990.

Moody, suspenseful, funky electro by none other than Gerald Donald of Drexciya.

Roman Norfleet from the Cosmic Tones Research Trio and Andre Raiah from Brown Calculus. ‘Esoteric texts, sacred imagery, and mystic thought feed into spare diagrams of sound as space, tone, and pulse, drawn by saxophone, keyboard and percussion.’
Warmly recommended; check it out.

Stone-classic sexed-up Detroit electro banger. Killer diller.