Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Manchester mavericks A Certain Ratio have been on a rare run of form of late, with 2023's 1982 counting as one of their most vibrant and endlessly entertaining albums for decades. Of course, all their albums are of a consistent quality, but It All Comes Down To This genuinely crackles with energy. From the word go, the veteran band's inherent funkiness is present, but this time it comes cloaked in fuzzy funk-rock guitar riffs, acid-fried effects, and vocals that are amongst the most forthright they've committed to wax (or, in this case, CD). In many ways, it is - as the band and producer/Sopeedy Wunderground boss Dan Carey intended - a 'back to basics' sound that focuses on the key aspects of ACR's sound. When those 'basics' are so strong, it's no surprise that the results are this impressive.

Review: Six years is ages for a band to go without releasing an album or doing very much. But for AC/DC, whose work rate has always been ridiculously high, it's a very, very long time. Between then and now, the band lost their lead singer, Brian Johnson, to hearing difficulties in the middle of their last tour, and saw drummer Paul Rudd arrested in New Zealand for 'attempting to procure a murder'. Talk about impetus to finally call time.

But then these are the guys responsible for one of history's greatest heavy rock triumphs, 1980s's Back In Black, released just months after formative frontman Bon Scott tragically passed. So it's no surprise Power Up, another post-traumatic release albeit an act of reunification with now (relatively) healthy Johnson and innocent Rudd returning, is among their best in the 40 years since. A comeback record that sounds exactly like AC/DC should - ballsy, bluesy, boozy riffs.

Review: Already the winner of a Brit Award (Adele was voted the 'Critics Choice' - the most exciting new British artist expected to 'make it big' in 2008),
'19' is Adele's debut album. Citing influences as diverse as Etta James, Jill Scott, Bjork, Dusty Springfield, Billy Bragg, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley,
The Cure and Peggy Lee, Adele also recently completed her first solo UK tour, having toured previously with the likes of Jack Penate, Jamie T,
Raul Midon, Amos Lee and Devendra Banhart. '19' contains both her debut track 'Hometown Glory' and her smash single 'Chasing Pavements'.
Blues tinged and melancholic, Adele describes 'Chasing Pavements' as 'It's me being hopeful for a relationship that's very much over. The sort
of relationship you hate when you're in it, but miss when you're not'. A hymn to lost love and regret, 'Chasing Pavements' follows Adele's first
limited edition single 'Hometown Glory', which introduced her to the world to much critical acclaim, with NME calling it 'totally, absolutely beautiful',
Q Magazine calling her 'The voice of next year' and The Sunday Times saying 'A Star Is Born'

Review: Masterminded by Danish stwart Alex Puddu and the Ivisible Session's Luciano Cantone, The Afro Soul Prophecy is a collaborative project featuring contributions from seriously good jazz, soul and Afro-funk musicians from around the World. Of course, sometimes such all-star affairs fail to live up to the hype, but Heat In The City certainly does. Offering a mixture of Roy Ayers' style jazz-funk, Afro-beat, Latin grooves, disco and Blaxpolitation funk instrumentals, Puddu and Cantone have managed to get the most from their contributors while balancing free expression with a detailed, intricate musical script packed to the rafters with superb musical details. For that reason alone, we'd argue that the album is well worth picking up.

Review: After four appearances on Lithuania's Greyscale, Ajnkana delivers his first long player Integers Equations, with more than an hour of "tangibly eerie, atmospheric chords", ambience but not ambient-edged beats and dubby effects either destined for play on deeper dancefloors or comedown soundtracking post-party living room sessions. The titles may be blank as anything, all binary and consisting of 1s and 0s in slightly different orders, but the instrumental, slowly-enveloping tracks have plenty of personality. Fans of Sahko, Chain Reaction and Ilian Tape's more esoteric offerings will love it.

Review: Jazzman has excavated another jazz "holy grail" here - one of the few albums ever recorded by San Francisco-based pianist (and local hero) Al Tanner. It was initially released back in 1967 by the obscure, but arguably significant, Touche label, and while popular within Californian jazz circles, garnered little exposure or sales elsewhere. It remains a fantastic album, with Tanner being joined by drummer William 'Smiley' Winters, bassist Edgar Williams, saxophonist Roy Henderson, and flautist/trumpeter George Alexander to attractively dance through a range of pleasingly breezy, musically detailed modal workouts. It's a genuinely impressive album all told, so praise must be given to Jazzman for unearthing and reissuing it.

Review: In 1973, and with the U-Roy-inspired 'deejay style' reggae craze at its height, toasters Dennis 'Alcapone' Smith and Delroy Petgrave AKA Lizzy joined forces with engineer Byron Smith to produce an album of brand-new songs based on Treasure Isle's vast archive of Duke Reid rocksteady and early roots reggae 'riddims'. Soul To Soul: DJ's Choice is undoubtedly a landmark reggae album, though this is the first time it's been available on CD. In true Doctor Bird style, this edition of the album has been expanded considerably, with the original set's 12 tracks being joined by 16 further Alcapone and Lizzy tracks from the Treasure Isle catalogue, including plenty of cuts that have never previously been released digitally and a wealth of dub style 'versions' from the flipsides of Jamaican singles.

Review: Arriving sometime after the passing of legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, and utilising some of the final recordings he made during his lifetime, the latest edition of Adrian Younge's Jazz Is Dead series is naturally tinged with melancholy. Yet Younge refuses to succumb to emotion, and instead uses Allen's impeccable grooves and polyrhythmic patterns as the basis of tracks that blend jazz, Afrobeat, Afro-funk and soul. There's a classic Fela Kuti feel to opener 'Ebun', where sax lines reminiscent of the Nigerian musical icon rise above a typically crunchy Allen groove, pots and pans percussion and ear-catching bass, while the flute-sporting 'Don't Believe The Dancers' adds a little more jazziness into its righteous blend of heavy Afrobeat horns, meandering solos and loose-limbed grooves. In other words, it's a spot-on tribute to a genuine musical legend.

Review: Fans of Marc Almost rejoice! Tenement Symphony, the Soft Cell singer's seventh solo album, returns via an impressive box set containing little less than six discs of music. The original 1991 album, a thrilling fusion of synth-pop, strings, piano house motifs and muscular dance grooves produced by the great Trevor Horn, sits on disc one alongside B-sides and seven-inch mixes, with disc two collecting extended versions and further B-sides. The remaining four discs showcase the songs contained on the album in various stages of development, with demos and work-in-progress versions aplenty, alongside live recordings and a swathe of previously released - and a smattering of never-released - club-focused remixes. Throw in a DVD of videos and BBC appearances, and you've got a genuinely brilliant box set.

Review: Emerging from Germany's psychedelic and progressive rock underground in the late 1960s, Amon Duul was a freewheeling collective named in honour of the "art commune" in Berlin in which they not only came together, but also recorded their turn-of-the-seventies albums - most notably the 1972 double album Disaster Luud Noma. Here reissued in fully remastered form, the album is highly significant - and not just because it is now counted as one of the earliest expressions of what would become known as krautrock. Built on dense, layered percussion and rhythms beaten out by multiple drummers, its' hard-to-pigeonhole sound drew on fuzzy psychedelic rock, twisted jazz-rock and the collective's own radical experimentation. It remains an utterly insane record, but a brilliant one at that.

Review: On its release last spring, reviewers hailed Horace Andy's Midnight Rockers as the honey-voiced reggae legend's best album in decades. It was certainly special, with the mighty Adrian Sherwood's production helping elevate the set to future classic levels. It was followed by the alternative, dub style 'Midnight Scorchers' album, which naturally featured Sherwood pushing the envelope far further than he did on the original set. This double-disc set brings together both sets, adds a couple of previously unreleased cuts, and allows us to once again wallow in the magnificence of such highlights as 'Safe From Harm' (a genuinely brilliant, surprisingly dark Massive Attack cover), the Ital Horns-heavy 'Material', Daddy Freddy hook-up 'Midnight Scorchers' and the Melodica-heavy dub workout 'Sleepy's Night Cap'.

Review: Back in 2002, the Detroit Electronic Musical Festival concluded with something rather special: a rare live performance from the Aux Men - an expanded and upgraded version of legendary Motor City electro outfit Aux88. This must-have CD presents that performance, complete with the original introduction from Eddie Fowlkes and DJ Bone, from start to finish. Full of spacey synth sounds, heavy beats, weighty bass, it's effectively a whirlwind trip through the history of both electro and Detroit's contribution to electronic music history. Thus, we get killer versions of 'Planet Rock', 'Shari-Vari', YMO's 'Computer Games', tons of Kraftwerk classics, a breathtaking interpretation of Art of Noise's 'Moments in Love' and rip-roaring takes on foundational tunes by Cybotron and Funkadelic..

Review: By his own admission, Daniel Avery's previous albums have been inspired by escapism and a desire to avoid focusing on the growing darkness of the world outside his studio. On Ultra Truth, he's flipped the switch, "directly looking into the darkness, not running away". That doesn't mean that he's left the dancefloor; far from it, in fact. While some of the aural textures, chords and melodies tend towards the melancholic, moody and overwhelming, they still feature club-ready rhythms or beats that tend towards the bold. Basically, it's heavy and dense, but sonically attractive enough to work outside of nightclub environments, with the contributions of various friends and contemporaries (HAAi, Kelly Lee Owens and Sherelle included) only enhancing the album. For proof, check out ultra-deep D&B roller 'Higher', the sparse and spooky electro shuffle of 'Chaos Energy', and the intergalactic breakbeat hustle of 'Wall of Energy'.

Review: Los Angeles based ambient husband and wife duo, awakened souls join with Reunion Island native, From Overseas to create Keep The Orange Sun. After hearing each other's individual music, a deeper conversation started about shared musical influences and inspiration leading to the creation of this album. Keep The Orange Sun guides the listener on a thoughtfully curated path. Starting with the certainty of life's changes (Certainty of Tides) to arising self-doubt (Release/Adapt) and celebrating immersion in the present moment as the gateway to deeper connection with nature and one's life (Keep The Orange Sun). The instrumentation present in each track channels elements of electronic, shoegaze & ambient with each artist's distinct musical fingerprint highlighted.

Review: Reportedly inspired by its' creator's thoughts about the impact of humans on the earth (and specifically the sentient life we share the planet with), Alexander Gluck's second album as Aware is an undeniably bittersweet affair. He's already proved adept at crafting atmospheric ambient pieces underscored by exceptional sound design, and Requiem For a Dying Animal takes this up a notch - not only by wresting every last drop of emotional weight from his chords, melodies and musical motifs, but also thanks to a subtle air of neo-classical grandiosity. The four cuts on show - with the near 18-minute closing cut offering a genuinely breath-taking conclusion - combine to create one evocative, slowly-shifting piece smothered in experimental sounds and tweaked field recordings.

Review: On the latest instalment in their essential Jazz is Dead series, musical polymaths Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have joined forces with Katalyst, a Los Angeles-based collective of musicians whose work is inspired by their 1960s Californian predecessors Afrikan People's Arkestra and Union of God Musicians Ascension Association. What's an offer is undeniably impressive and, at genuinely life-affirming, with the assembled cast doing a superb job of joining the dots between spiritual jazz, soul-jazz, horizontal jazz-funk and deeper, more sun-kissed flavours. Highlights are plentiful and include, though are no way limited to, the breezy 'Juneteenth', the languid dancefloor shuffle and sustained electric piano motifs of 'The Avenues' and the morning-fresh wonder that is 'Daybreak'.