Nigerian scorchers, Smog at the BBC, piano meditations, CAN ripping it live and jazz at Slugs’

Absolutely hurtling us into the new week is a really fantastic compilation on Soundway called Nigeria Special Volume 3, looking at ‘Electronic Innovation Meets Culture And Tradition 1978-93’. The nineteen tracks chronicle a real melting pot of genres, with reggae, disco and rock and roll soul colliding to glorious effect with drum machines and synthesisers. It’s another really superb set of curation from Soundway and you’ll recall how wild we went for the companion ‘Ghana Special’ LP back in the early summer.

Another lovely 3LP package with an excellent liner book with photos and ephemera.
A very limited and very excellent piece of goods from the Bill Callahan / Smog metaverse this week on Drag City, with The Holy Grail: Bill Callahan’s "Smog" Dec. 10, 2001 Peel Session. Four really special live cuts at the beeb with the final track, Jesus, sounding like “a deathbed plea shot through with visitations from the angel of mercy.” And they are Bill's own words. Don’t miss out, we hardly have any.

Mute and Future Days continue the superb CAN live series with Live in Keele 1977 as the latest in the series. The core lineup of Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli and Holger Czukay were joined by Rosko Gee from Traffic on bass and it freed up Czukay to focus on “waveform radio and spec sounds”. Man did they ever lock into some hypnotic grooves.

piano1 is the first in a series of solo piano compilation albums curated by the section1 label. Ambient floats through to more choppy experimentalism, featuring; Kelly Moran, Laraaji, Matthew Tavares, Hand Habits and the sublime Ichiko Aoba.

+ Pressed on Crystal Clear colour vinyl.

We have a really great Half-Speed Mastered Edition (cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios) of The Special AKA’s In The Studio album to celebrate its fortieth anniversary. This release has been liaised and approved by the band's founder and main songwriter Jerry Dammers.

Also this week; Black Star is the collaborative duo of rappers Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli, and we have a full physical release of their 2022 album, No Fear of Time. Ghostly International have pressed a fifteen year anniversary edition of Matthew Dear’s Black City. Still sounds richly mysterious, this new edition is pressed on transparent Silver vinyl, with custom paper obi and b-sides. Sacred Bones Records release Robin Carolan’s soundtrack to the forthcoming Nosferatu, which really does sound about as sinister as anything going. A limited double Oxblood colour vinyl pressing is in stock now too.
We spectacularly sold out of Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan’s Ballad of The Broken Seas on pre order, but, we are hoping to have a few more copies land this week. All eyes on the website, as ever!

Lastly today, Forces Of Nature is a never-before-issued collaborative live recording from McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson. The 1966 set was recorded at Slugs' Saloon in New York and apparently the tape has been safely and secretly in drummer Jack DeJohnette’s personal archives for pushing sixty years.

Such a scorching find, we’re absolutely loving this.