Shadow’s samples and the kind of funk-rippers he dreams of!

We are starting off this new week with an all-time icon back in stock, the all-new Half Speed Master of DJ Shadow’s seminal Endtroducing... A genuine landmark in the history of electronic music and hip hop culture, the LP is often cited as the first-ever album composed entirely of sampled material. Structured with beats and loops and samples across almost all of recorded music history, it sounds as otherworldly today as it did when it first debuted in late 1996. If you don’t already own it, you need it, and if you do already own it, this 2024 edition has just never sounded crisper!

Now then friends, are you ready to have your lids blown off? Available for the first time in well over a decade, the self-titled Rail Band LP via Mississippi Records is one of the heaviest, grooviest and most sought-after guitar records from late seventies Mali. It’s a really amazing story, the official orchestra of the Malian state railway and a set of players who honed their formidable skills playing five nights a week at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare. A hypnotic blend of funk-rasping riffs, jazz horns and soulful vocals. Really, really fantastic stuff.

Fuse is the second in a series of archive releases by Cranes. Now reissued on the Dadaphonic label, Fuse was recorded in Portsmouth, their hometown, by siblings Alison and Jim Shaw. It originally appeared as a cassette album in 1986 and shows off a sparser, darker and more industrial, post punk sound. A darkly evocative treasure!

Beggars Arkive present a lavish new pressing of Fields of the Nephilim’s highly acclaimed third LP, Elizium. Originally released by Beggars Banquet in 1990, this new pressing (on Brick Red colour vinyl) has been expanded onto a double LP for audio clarity and contains 4 bonus tracks.

As promised, we’ll be talking about some absolutely smashing compilation albums soon, plus we’re expecting Tone Poet pressings from Horace Silver and Anthony Williams to land shortly too.

But, lastly this week and very much getting the Drift 😍 eyes is a double set from Lafayette Afro Rock Band via the esteemed Strut. This is the first ever reissue of the collective’s 1973 LP Soul Makossa and following 1974 album, Malik. Predominantly instrumental, this really is so full of energy. Jubilant and dense soul with loads of Afro-funk shapes, especially the scorched out guitar wails that cut through the brass shrieks. As with so many amazing titles in the seventies, these two belters found more attention through hip-hop culture sampling them a decade later, but they remain hugely enjoyable and will be getting plenty of air time over on the Drift stereo.

Do dig deep, some absolute smashers this week.

- Drift