The month’s best organic funk, garage pop and molten bossa.
1 ST. VINCENT AND THE ROOTS GLORY BOX
On Jimmy Fallon: Annie Clark, Questlove and band, plus a string section, come together for a torchier take on Portishead’s ’94 heart-barer. Find it:
YouTube 2 PETE TOWNSHEND CAN’T OUTRUN THE TRUTH
Pete’s first solo 45 for aeons, a steel guitar country ramble recalls the inertia of lockdown and the necessity of busting out; proceeds to the Teenage Cancer Trust. Find it:
YouTube 3 LOCAL PSYCHO THE HURDY GURDY SONG
Jimmy from The KLF and Jem from The Pogues turn sirens, junglism and hurdy-gurdy into bug-eyed rave sounds for social unrest. Find it:
streaming services 4 LOU REED OPEN INVITATION
An out-take from 1984’s New Sensations, this loose-fit groover crunches and slaps and finds Lou rhapsodising over Tai Chi (it “can make you healthy and sexier”).
Find it: streaming services
5 KASSA OVERALL (FEAT. THEO CROKER) THE LAVA IS CALM
Newly signed to Warp, the Seattle rapper/jazzer’s latest features trumpeter Croker on this molten bossa meditation.
Find it: streaming services
6 SHAKIN’ STEVENS ALL YOU NEED IS GREED
Fifty-three years after his first record, Shaky brings a cold analysis of scorched earth financialisation over a lean hillbilly prowl. Find it: streaming services
7 MV & EE FREE RANGE
Ambient Funkadelic? Can In Dub? Backwoods sitar recitation? This 19-minute psych-out from the first couple of New Weird America is all that and more.
Find it: Bandcamp
8 EL NIÑO DIABLO HOUSE OF JUJU
Reverberant retro-electro from the Berlin-based electronic artist, with downbeat, Weatherall-esque psych grooves.
Find it: streaming services
9 DAMIAN O’NEILL MÁS O MENOS (THE LIMIÑANAS REMIX)
Ex-Undertones guitarist and the groovy French garage pop duo meet over Gainsbourg-esque cinematics. Find it: streaming services
10 NUSANTARA BEAT SABILULUNGAN
Altin Gün-affiliated Dutch-Indonesian vintage-pop twang, as dug by MOJO at Leiden’s most swinging Peel Slowly And See mini-fest in March.
Find it: YouTube