Music

1. 

   1. Mulatu Astatke & the Heliocentrics: Inspiration Information 3

   We were all expecting great albums from Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and Flaming Lips in 2009, but this record arrived with little fanfare and knocked us for a loop. Mulatu Astatke (born 1943) i...read more

2. 

   2. Ethiopiques 24: Golden Years of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975

   From 1969 to 1974, after Ethiopia’s liberation and before the country’s 1974 fall into Stalinist repression, Amha Records’ Amha Esèté released a huge volume of the country’s unique “Abyssian groove...read more

3. 

   3. v/a: Roots of OK Jazz: Congo Classics 1955-56

   The meaning of the title has little to do with the genre of jazz: This album compiles the early recordings of the eventual founders of Tout-Puissant OK Jazz, one of the two most popular Congole...read more

4. 

   4. v/a: Baby, How Can It Be?

   Another instant classic from the Dust-to-Digital label, Baby, How Can It Be? neatly arranges three discs of old-time country-blues and hot jazz into romantically themed segments: love, lust and con...read more

5. 

   5. Alon Nechushtan: Words Beyond

   What a fresh disc this is—a jazz-trio session that's airy, accessible and challenging all at once, the kind of record you don't need to be a jazz fan to dig. The namesake Alon Nechushtan is out fro...read more

6. 

   6. Fire! with Jim O'Rourke: Unreleased?

   A monster record featuring some of planet Earth's heaviest hitters, the curiously named Unreleased? makes adventurous avant-jazz positively groove. The quartet -- Jim O'Rourke on guitar and synth, ...read more

7. 

   7. The Roots: Undun

   Hope nobody's been taking the Roots for granted lately, you know, given their cultural ubiquity (late-night TV and all that). Because lucky album number 13, Undun, is a bit of a mind-blower: a suit...read more

8. 

   8. The Necks: Mindset

   Here's one from the bottom of the deck, by which we mean Australia: The Necks are a more or less perpetually stunning trio of versatile inside/outside players, meaning they are as comfy with compos...read more

9. 

   9. Lee Morgan: City Lights

   Benny Golson's writing for this date uplifts it beyond most of the jam session sets of the period. Trumpeter Lee Morgan (then 19) is in excellent form, holding his own with his impressive sidemen (...read more

10. 

    10. David Axelrod: Songs of Experience

    After the modicum of success he'd experienced with his debut, Song of Innocence, set to William Blake's epic suite of poems, composer, arranger, and producer David Axelrod turned to the British ...read more

11. 

    11. Roy Ayers: Ubiquity

    Roy Ayers's leap to the Polydor label inaugurates his music's evolution away from the more traditional jazz of his earlier Atlantic LPs toward the infectious, funk-inspired fusion that still ...read more

12. 

    12. Cal Tjader: Latin Concert

    This record offers a pretty good sampling of vibraphonist Cal Tjader's influential Latin-jazz of the 1950s. With pianist Vince Guaraldi, bassist Al McKibbon, Willie Bobo on timbales and drums and t...read more

13. 

    13. Herbie Hancock: The Prisoner

    As one of the first albums Herbie Hancock recorded after departing Miles Davis' quintet in 1968, as well as his final album for Blue Note, The Prisoner is one of Hancock's most ambitious efforts. A...read more

Tags: 60s , 70s , 78s , african , afro-pop , art-rock , avant-garde , blues , cinematic , classic , cool , country , ethiopia , folk , funk , heavy , hip-hop , instrumental , jazz , Latin , new york , piano , psychedelic , reissue , scandanavia , soul