MOJO PLAYLIST
Check in! For the month’s best pop, jazz and Dust Bowl Ballads.
1 JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN/ TONY ALLEN/DAVE OKUMU TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER
An all-night improv with the late Allen gave Joan Wasser an LP, starting with this brilliant vision of Jacinda Ardern sorting the US out. Find it: streaming services
2 MARGO CILKER TEHACHAPI
Imagine Gillian Welch at The Band’s sessions with Allen
Toussaint, and you’re close to the charm of this new Americana voice. Find it: Bandcamp
3 ABBA DON’T SHUT ME DOWN
The second song from comeback album Voyage, this Dancing Queen-frosted groover of impossible return seems sung from the perspective of the new ‘Abbatar’ replicants. Find it: streaming services
4 JON HOPKINS AND RAM DASS SIT AROUND THE FIRE
From new LP Music For Psychedelic Therapy,
Hopkins uses minimalist ambience and the voice of the spiritual teacher to demolish ego. Find it: streaming services
5 NALA SINEPHRO SPACE 3
A Caribbean-Belgian harpist brings cosmic/electronic new dimensions to the London jazz scene. Amidst percolating ambience, Nubya Garcia also turns up, with sax.
Find it: Bandcamp
6 SWAMP DOGG DUST BOWL REFUGEE
Jerry Williams Jr’s remake of Woody Guthrie’s migrant ballad adds strings and vocal swing. From Guthrie tribute Home In This World.
Find it: streaming services
7 SLOW DOWN MOLASSES SOME FINE ACTION
Noise-rocking Saskatoon neo-shoegazers find corroded melodies in the wreckage of a rock anthem. From new LP Minor Deaths.
Find it: Bandcamp
8 YOUTH SPINNING WHEEL
Unashamed autumnal pop, like a splicing of The Circle Game and If I Were A Carpenter, from a member of Killing Joke? “There’s more colours in my head,” avers Youth.
Find it: streaming services
9 PAUL JOHNSON MUSIC’S IN ME
The late Chicago house hero samples Sylvester’s Mighty
Real and Rare Pleasure’s Let Me Down Easy into dancefloor nirvana. Find it: YouTube
10 NIGHTMARES ON WAX WONDER
From the Shout Out! To Freedom LP, George Evelyn plus Shabaka Hutchings and Haile Supreme dream-drift into the timeless ether. Find it: Bandcamp