FILTER REISSUES

Various

★★★ Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History Of Library Music ANTHOLOGY. CD/DL/LP Connoisseur selection of stock instrumentals from library music aficionado. David Hollander’s recent book, also titled Unusual Sounds, offered a definitive audit of international library music, the readymade soundtrack material extensively deployed during the heyday of low-budget TV and B-movie-making (early 1960s to mid ’80s, effectively). This 20-track complement proffers the work of library album cognoscenti favourites such as Keith Mansfield and John Cameron as well as more obscure names, and while much here errs toward vanilla and cheese (yum), delectably idiosyncratic morsels are also on the menu – not least Joel Vandroogenbroeck & Marc Monsen’s Eno-like synth étude Group Meditation, and Roland Hollinger’s serene Fender Rhodes study Dream Number Two. The soaring chorales and teeming percussion of Janko Nilovic’s Xenos Cosmos and V. Géminiani’s Ophis Le Serpentaire, which pitches generic bah-dah vocals against ambient synths and eerie trumpets over an almost Can-like reverse groove, also take the road less travelled, to beguiling effect. David Sheppard

Lindsey Buckingham

★★★★ Solo Anthology: The Best Of Lindsey Buckingham WARNER MUSIC. CD/DL/LP Fleetwood Mac’s now estranged ringmaster’s collected works. The lyrical sharp edges and musical risk-taking that came with Lindsey Buckingham frequently stopped Fleetwood Mac from sliding into cosy conformity. However, solo Buckingham is a spikier proposition and a somewhat more difficult sell. Solo Anthology pans for gold on his six studio long-players, with the deluxe edition featuring a disc of live tracks from 2011: basically, edgy acoustic interpretations of the ‘hits’, including Holiday Road and the Mac’s Go Your Own Way. Overall, it neatly balances the nervous tension driving, say, 1984’s Go Insane (his angry, fleetingly brilliant kiss-off to an ex-girlfriend) with gentler, warmer moments from ’92’s overlooked Out Of The Cradle and his most recent, 2011’s Seeds We Sow. Psychological turmoil has always been a part of the complete Lindsey Buckingham experience, but in a Utopian world the cerebral pop of You Do Or You Don’t and Illumination would have become Stevie Nicks-style hits. Mark Blake

Barry Adamson

★★★★ Memento Mori (Anthology 1978-2018) MUTE. CD/DL/LP Career-spanning retrospective of ex-Magazine bassist’s sonic adventures. Barry Adamson’s decision t o quit band life as he approached 30 proved the making of him. After chaotic spells in Magazine and Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, Adamson repaired to Manchester, fashioning the first, and arguably best, soundtrack to an imaginary film: 1989’s murky, claustrophobic, unbearably tense Moss Side Story (represented here by Man With The Golden Arm’s hair-raising trumpet salvo). It changed his life. Not only did he land real big-screen gigs with David Lynch, Oliver Stone and Danny Boyle, but his lurching solo albums played a restless musical hopscotch: tempering his admiration for Bernstein, Barry and Morricone with soul, funk, jazz, blues and psych juxtapositions, skanking Bond theme rewrites and blackly comic wordplay. As this cherry- pick winds down, with Magazine’s melodramatic Parade, it’s possible to grasp just how far Adamson has come. Andy Cowan

Johnny Clarke

★★★★ Creation Rebel 17 NORTH PARADE. CD/DL/LP Double-disc set of Clarke’s rough-edged best Raised in poverty in a harsh west Kingston ghetto, Johnny Clarke avoided a life of crime by harnessing his expressive tenor voice. Early efforts floundered, but when Johnny teamed with producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee, the lasting partnership yielded an incredible run of hits and an overseas contract with Virgin. This two-disc retrospective is packed with reggae anthems delivered in Clarke’s engaging style; songs of Rastafari faith and pride in an African heritage jostle with tales of streetgang warfare and politicallyaligned violence. Jah Love Is With I, Bad Days Are Going, Cold I Up and Don’t Be A Rude Boy are among the many highlights, and since everything was voiced and mixed at King Tubby’s studio, there is a pervasive dub sensibility, as heard in Sensurround stereo on Don’t Trouble Trouble. In short, this is deep roots at its resplendent best. David Katz

Jack Wilkins

★★★ Windows WE WANT SOUNDS. LP New York guitarist’s cult jazz album reissued on vinyl for first time. A nimblefingered Brooklyn-born guitarist who played with jazz greats Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charles Mingus, Wilkins released this album in 1973 for Bob Shad’s indie label, Mainstream. It largely went unnoticed at the time, but interest in it was spectacularly revived 20 years later when A Tribe Called Quest sampled and looped the groove section from Wilkins’ ace version of Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay for the track Sucka Nigga, from their Midnight Marauders album. Though Red Clay is the obvious standout on this six-song set, there are other cuts that deserve attention. Wilkins and his trio (bassist Mike Moore and drummer, Paul Goodwin) serve up a spellbinding rendition of John Coltrane’s mournful ballad Naima, and also catch the ear with their tasteful versions of Chick Corea’s title song and Wayne Shorter’s Pinocchio. Charles Waring

Gyedu-Blay Ambolley

★★★★ Simigwa MR BONGO. CD/DL/LP Much-prized 1975 highlifefunk hybrid. During the late 1960s and early ’70s, singer and multi-instrumentalist Gyedu-Blay Ambolley played in premier highlife outfits, including the Ghana Broadcasting Band and the Uhuru Dance Band, joining the latter through his mentor Ebo Taylor, who pioneered the use of funk and soul elements in Ghanaian music; in 1973, Ambolley creating the Simigwa genre by fusing rap and funk with Highlife and Ghanaian folk. Ambolley’s debut solo LP Simigwa, coproduced with Taylor, opens with references to Sex Machine on the driving Kwaakwaa, but Ambolley’s funk is much more than a JB’s steal. Instead, this agreeable hybrid is heavily steeped in highlife, its complex polyrhythms counterbalanced by bright jazz-influenced horns and scattergun guitars. This Hustling World bemoans corrosive greed in funky pidgin, and although slow groove Adwoa has wah wah guitar and mellow organ, the vocals and captivating flute are distinctly Ghanaian. David Katz