New releases last eight weeks: International

Review: This 2024 edition marks the return of Joe Bataan, via the same track that made his name in 2004. Vampi Soul first welcomed the Latin Soul king to the label two decades back, facilitating the release of his 2005 album Call My Name. The pre-release singles for the album were 'Chick-A-Boom' and 'Cycles Of You', packed onto a single 7"; these quickly became DJs' favourites and have thus since remained long out of print. As it was twenty years ago, 'Chick-A-Boom' is a simultaneously upbeat but ghostly track, with Bataan's vocals quadrupling up in a wall of sound while providing the vibe equivalent of a Jackie Chan flick. 'Call My Name', meanwhile, goes heavy on the clavichord and synth whistle, as Bataan revels in a funereal theme, dancing, thundersticking into the great beyond.

Review: Vampisoul dedicate one more 7" to another fresh-from-the-woodfired slice of modern cumbia, this time from the eponymous La Cumbia Moderna De Soledad band and Machuca Cumbia respectively. On the A, the former band offer up a two-toning cumbia version of Rod Stewart's 'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?', sparse but well-wrought in its sound. The B is a treat that vibrates at a different, but equally as effective frequency, being a convincingly retro take on the Bee Gees' 'Stayin' Alive', and lending the song's ineluctable melodies a Latin twist by way of hypnotic percs and guitars.

Review: This a unique release that features a song that was released by two different bands during within the same year. The song 'Meshkalina' was by a psychedelic and prog band from Peru called Traffic Sound and then, soon after, by Latin duo Paco Zambrano and Reynaldo Murrieta under the name Paco Zambrano Y Su Combo. The latter version is more traditional and Latin while the Traffic Sound version is more psychedelic garage rock band-like. Two formidable and very different versions featured on limited splattered 7" vinyl.

Review: Latin funk music's best and brightest recollector-reissuers Vampi Soul continue to do what they do best with this latest reissue of the debut self-titled album by Zulu. One of the last great albums of the first wave of Peruvian rock,and originally released in 1974, Zulu was infamous for its linking of psych-tinged rock with Afro-Latin American beats and folk pop. The enigmatic Zulu (real name Miguel Angel Ruiz Orbegoso) was best known during his lifetime as a member of the bands Traffic Sound and Los Nuevos Shain, but his only solo album commands a unique aura as a numinous rarity, immediately pre-dating his latter-career immersion in the religious community. Reissued for the first time with the collaboration of Zulu, including extensive liner notes and one extra track, the likes of 'Si en el cielo yo viviera', 'Laberintos' and 'Candela' are pastoral gems of folk-cumbia and salsa, playing back with a level of sensitivity and texture that could only be born of a worthy spirit.