Steve Crawford
Dance Detroit

A Seat At The Table, is the new album from Solange Knowles. Solange describes A Seat At The Table as ''a project on identity, empowerment, independence, grief and healing.''A Seat At The Table was written by Solange, and features a host of guest artists including Q-Tip, Kelly Rowland, The Dream, BJ The Chicago Kid, Kelela, Tweet, Moses Sumney, Sampha, Sean Nicholas Savage, Nia Andrews, Devonte Hynes of Houston Texas and Lu of Carolina.

Raï is the music of a youth hungover from Algeria's recent independence. It became a space for a liberated, transgressive dialogue that told the social truths of its time -- an up-front yet poetic voice that covers the taboos and frustrations of daily life, expressing emotion without detour. This voice is heard at weddings, cabarets, in the nightclubs of the Oranese coast, and casually on the street... With the boom of the audio cassette, an avalanche of raï tapes were produced in Oran and diffused all over the world. Both women and men sang and listened to the new sound, as raï is intimately tied to parties, alcohol and the night. With the spontaneous improvisation of its singers as the main part of each song, raï keeps reinventing itself. In this style, Cheb Hasni, along with Cheb Nasro, incarnates a second generation of musicians. With the "love raï", or sentimental raï, Hasni sings about love, passion and its setbacks -- moving away from the bittersweet daily chronicles of the first chebs and chebates. Having recorded nearly 150 cassettes, Cheb Hasni remains one of the most prolific and talented raï singers of his generation. Almost thirty years after his death, this three-volume compilation of rare tracks from his cassette releases on the Oriental Music Production label is a tribute to the lasting legacy of Cheb Hasni -- ya raï! The second volume of three is presented here.CHEB HASNIVol 2Outre National

On June 3rd Gondwana Records present ‘Next Time Could Be Your Last Time’ – the debut album by Forgiveness, AKA Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. Described as “not really jazz, not really new age, not really ambient or electronica”, instead they welcome you into a synaesthesia-inducing technicolour fantasy, full of wondrous emotive beauty.This genesis began with the sharing of music, burgeoning friendships, and the mutually-inspirational benefit of the collective power of a group dynamic, with each spurring the next on to heighten their already expansive skills.Intertwining the acoustic, electric and digital, utilising instruments and tools from across the decades, their synthesized Shangri La is a place where craftsmanship meets musicianship, even including sections notated on sheet music. The mood whilst recording, however, was one of loose freedom and enjoyment, with parts displaying a light-hearted playfulness. A world where shiny electronics meet flute and sax motifs, subverting them into something new.Jack Wyllie is best known for his work with Portico Quartet, Paradise Cinema and Szun Waves as well as collaborations with artists such as Luke Abbott, Adrian Corker and Charles Hayward. Whilst JQ has released on Boxed and Lo Recordings, with his music also remixed by Loraine James, Sun Araw and Foodman. Richard Pike has had multiple records on Warp as a member of PVT, collaborated with Modeselektor and Ital Tek, recorded under his alter-ego Deep Learning, and founded the tape label Salmon Universe, all whilst composing scores for TV drama.Wide-ranging influences on the LP include 70s era ECM and Miles Davis, Spencer Clark/Star Searchers, Ansel Adams, Steve Reich, H Takahashi, Don Slepian, The Blue Nile, Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’, Michael Gordon’s ‘Rushes for 8 Bassoons’, Sir Simon Rattle’s documentary ‘Leaving Home’, Horoshi Yoshimura, Ulla Strauss and Disasterpeace, plus new developments in vaporwave and software experimental.Hitting the centre at the ven diagram of these interests, the record converges the trio’s individual sound worlds into something singular. Primarily purveying a sense of endorphin-flushed tranquillity, they build synthetic, bucolic, lysergic landscapes, which although imbued with processed plasticity also contain multi-stranded depths of textural field.

Hot on the tattered heels of ‘Terminal Tokyo’ - the reissued cult UK DIY single by Garage Class and the inaugural release on Outer Reaches - arrives ‘Flight & Pursuit’, another overlooked revelation of provincial post-punk, this time by Indifferent Dance Centre. A four-piece from Chichester, a quiet Cathedral city in West Sussex, the group consisted of Lizzy Dowling (vocals / lyrics), Christopher Binns (guitar), Ashley Barrett (bass) and Douglas Barrett (drums / guitar & bass when required) with added contributions from known associates including the artist & musician Alexander Johnson (melodica)

German band Kreidler reach the rather significant milestone of a fifteenth studio album here with Spells And Daubs. By now they are masters of their form, which is a mix of electronica and krautrock but with hints of influence from British pop music. The rhythms are bendy and dubby, ever evolving and alluring from the off with well defined lines and lots of little details all fleshing out the grooves. Dark melodies never grow too foreboding as clicks, whirrs and hits swing to and fro over the top. It is a trance including record that demands close listening on a good system for maximum effect.

Squarepusher goes full on Vocoder-Funk on your ass. Slick slick slick!