Ayanda Sikade
Umakhulu

Finally, a much-needed re-issue of Luiz Eça's Mexican only Brazilian release 'La Nueva Onda De Brasil' on ViNiLiSSSiMO Records, re-issued in the mid-2000s, it's long been out of print. The album features a whole host of Brazilian greats such as Joyce, Wilson Simonal, and Naná Vasconcelos. A highly recommended Brazilian masterpiece!

Wonderful LP from Helsinki based multi instrumentalist and producer Jimi Tenor. For 'Order Of Nothingness' Jimi has recruited rhythm geniouses Ekow Alabi Savage and Max Weissenfeldt, fashioning their own brand of experimental afrobeat and jazz.

Mathew Halsall's Gondwana label out of Manchester is one of contemporary jazz's finest. His own work forms the vital backbone, but his A&R skill also brings on board the likes of Mammal Hands, a band driven by piano, sax and piano. Their ethereal sound captivates the mind and takes it on heavenly trips that can be loose and freewheeling and more tight and kinetic. Both of those styles are showcased on this superb 7" which now gets a welcome reissue. "Chaser" is a high tempo adventure on slick drums and urgent sax playing while "Prism" suspends you in clouds of pillowy sound.

The Brkn Record is a new project led and produced by Jake Ferguson, the co-founder and bass player for the UK’s foundational deep jazz outfit the Heliocentrics. With fellow Heliocentrics co-founder and legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has been a regular collaborator with globally recognised artists including Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, Melvin Van Peebles, Orlando Julius and many others. The Architecture of Oppression Part 1 represents Ferguson’s debut as a bandleader and orchestrator, and manifests as a committed and soulful response to ongoing and systemic anti-black racism, social oppression and state violence both at home in London and across the globe. Combining poetry, testimony and song with rich and cinematic backdrops, Ferguson has produced a sui generis sound that conjures flavours of Arthur Verocai, Ennio Morricone, classic library productions, Madlib-style deep-jazz beat science, and psychedelic soul. With bandmate Malcolm Catto on drums, Ferguson draws on their long years of collaborative experience in the Heliocentrics to build an album of striking texture and depth. But the album does not only reflect Ferguson’s full-spectrum musical prowess, experience and vision. It is equally a manifestation of his longstanding and high-profile work as a frontline activist for racial justice and social equity in London and beyond.