New releases last four weeks: Jazz

Review: Some 13 years have now passed since Mississippi Records started reissuing private press albums by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, an Ethiopian Orthodox nun, pianist and composer whose naturally religious-inspired works frequently took spiritual music to fascinating new places. Here the label turns its attention to 1972's Church of Kidane Mehret, notable not only for being recorded live in various churches across Jerusalem, but also for the use of harmonium and pipe organ as well as Emehoy's beloved piano. The original album, which in line with her other album features intricate and mood-enhancing solo translations of orthodox liturgies, has here been expanded via the inclusion of two further piano pieces from 1963's ultra-rare Der Sang Des Reeres - a set of which only 50 copies were ever produced.

Review: While best known as an admired author and music historian, Jon Savage has long been one of our most interesting and considered compilation curators - a music collector whose thematic collections have variously touched on 90s ambient, turn-of-the-80s electronica, post-punk, LGBTQ pop, garage-rock and proto-techno. On Space: Light Years From Home, he offers a whirlwind - and decidedly eclectic - trip through music inspired by all things intergalactic. That means an enticing blend of out-there instrumentals (Spirt's 'Space Child'(), cosmic disco throbbers (Cosmic Hoffmann's deliciously OTT 'Space Disco'), Britfunk (Atmosfear), new wave (Devo), experimental synth-scapes (Martin Hannett and Steve Hopkins), out-there jazz (Sun Ra), weirdo ambient (Biosphere), space rock (Hawkwind), Deep house (Larry Heard) and impossible-to-pigeonhole oddness (Tim Buckley).