Pretty Things - Parachute Reborn 2013

Of all the original British Invasion groups, perhaps none were as underappreciated in the United States as the Pretty Things. Featuring the hoarse vocals of Mick Jagger-lookalike Phil May and the stinging leads of guitarist Dick Taylor (who actually played in early versions of the Rolling Stones with Jagger andKeith Richards), the Pretties recorded a clutch of raunchy R&B rockers in the mid-'60s that offered a punkier, rawer version of the early Stones sound.

Their first two albums, 1965's The Pretty Things and the same year'sGet the Picture, as well as a brace of fine major and minor British hits (of which "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Honey I Need" were the biggest), featured first-rate original material and covers, and remain the group's most exciting and influential recordings. Unfortunately, the band remained virtually unknown to American audiences, most of whom would first hear "Don't Bring Me Down" on David Bowie's Pin Ups album (which also included a version of the Pretties' "Rosalyn").

After their initial run of success, the group took a sharp left turn into psychedelia with the orchestrated album Emotions (1967), impressive singles that owed more to Pink Floyd than Bo Diddley, and, most significantly, S.F. Sorrow (1968). The first rock opera, S.F. Sorrow was a major influence on Pete Townshend, who released his much more successful opera, Tommy, with the Who the following year.

Founding member Taylor left shortly after S.F. Sorrow, and the group continued to record progressive rock and hard rock with less impressive results through the mid-'70s, although Parachute (1970) was named Album of the Year by Rolling Stone. The group reunited sporadically for occasional gigs and recordings in their early R&B vein before officially re-forming to releaseRage...Before Beauty in 1999 and Balboa Island eight years later. Thanks to MFP we can listen to this new recording!

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Tame Impala - Innerspeaker 2010

The limpid lysergic swirls and squalling fuzz-toned riffs that populate Tame Impala's debut clearly owe a hefty, heartfelt debt to the hazy churn of late-'60s/early-'70s psych rock, but the members of this Perth threesome are hardly strict revivalists. In comparison to their similarly inspired contemporaries, they chart a course somewhere between Dungen's lovingly meticulous replication of their chosen style andMalachai's deconstructive, electronically enabled pastiche of same, deftly skirting the potential for parodic excess that comes with either extreme. Balancing an obvious reverence for their sonic forebears with subtly contemporary production tweaks, they make straddling two disparate eras feel like the most comfortable, effortless thing in the world. And that sense of unforced, unpretentious ease is fundamental to what makes Innerspeaker so simply, viscerally pleasurable: there's so much that Tame Impala get so wonderfully right here -- a distinct but understated undercurrent of melody, a relaxed but ever-present sense of groove, a crystal crispness and deliberateness to the sound even when it's treated with a healthy dousing of buzz and reverb -- without seeming like they're trying at all hard. Despite a classic power trio configuration and relatively limited use of overdubbing, the album frequently feels so sonically massive, so thick with ringing guitars, walls of effects, and tremendous, reverberating drums, that it's hard to believe it's the work of a mere threesome. Kudos are perhaps in order to neo-psych mainstay Dave Fridmann, who mans the mixing boards here with a relish and restraint that helps make this one of the most tasteful (and tasty) records on his recent résumé. Credit frontman Kevin Parker's lazily drawled, remarkably Lennon-esque vocals, too, (frequently Leslie'd or otherwise processed, which helps) with giving the album an extra air of free-floating authenticity (while only occasionally giving up anything as specific and tangible as a substantially intelligible lyric). It's only infrequently that individual songs manage to stand out from the surrounding fluid, atmospheric haze -- typically when the band decides to leave its hooks a bit of space to breathe, as on the chunky, chugging closer "I Don't Really Mind" or the crisp, snakily phased guitar lick cementing the deliciously poppy "Solitude Is Bliss." But the dearth of standout tracks here hardly feels like an issue -- indeed, Innerspeaker coasts so beautifully on its blissful, billowing waves of sound that readily discernible hooks almost seem like gratuitous distractions. AMG.

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Rabih Abou-Khalil - Blue Camel 1992

Blue Camel is the pinnacle to date of Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil's achievement as a jazzman. In both mood and scope, it can almost be characterized as a new Kind of Blue. Both tense and reflective, it is perfect for listening after midnight. Abou-Khalil brings back Charlie Mariano on alto sax and Kenny Wheeler on flügelhorn and trumpet, and they generally alternate solos with Abou-Khalilhimself. Rounding out the roster is Steve Swallow on bass, Milton Cardona on congos, Nabil Khaiat on frame drums, and Ramesh Shotham on South Indian drums and percussion. They form a tight ensemble and play comfortably with each other. The album opens with "Sahara," which contains both one ofAbou-Khalil's tunes, a mesmerizing melody that could be either Arabic or jazz, and one of Abou-Khalil's best solos, a well-defined interlude that delightfully features the unique timbre of the oud. "Tsarka" begins with a fast break on the oud that turns out to be one of the two motifs on which everything is built. After it is elaborated for a few bars, the oud comes back with another building block. Then we get some stunning improvisations, especially from Abou-Khalil. "Ziriab" opens with a trumpet solo in which Kenny Wheeler tests the compass of his instrument, backed up with some atmospheric sounds from the udu drum; then Abou-Khalil enters with another great tune for everyone to build on. The title track is nothing but fun. Seductive percussion ushers in Wheeler and Mariano playing in unison for a tune that is somewhere between Duke Ellington and the court of Baghdad. As the percussion bubbles along, Milton Cardona's congos adding a Latin flavor to the proceedings, Abou-Khalil steps up with a very fast and rhythmic, if not very tuneful, solo. Midway through the track, Mariano blisters the paint with a screeching sax workout that bridges the Arabic and the Latin, while remaining all the while pure jazz. Even Steve Swallow gets a chance to feature his bass after which the ensemble brings it together and takes it home. Some of the other tracks are not as good as the ones mentioned above, but they are all listenable and very atmospheric. The aptly named "A Night in the Mountains" is a slow, thoughtful walk, perfect for silent contemplation. The album ends with "Beirut," named for the Lebanese city torn by civil war from which Abou-Khalil had to flee many years ago. The track begins with a quiet oud solo and then builds to something more chaotic and striving. Blue Camel may not be a perfect album, but it demonstrates better than any other that a fusion between jazz and a musical form from another culture is possible and can work to the advantage of both. Plus, it's just great listening. AMG.

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Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou - The Vodoun Effect 2008

Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou are a band from Benin, which plays Afrobeat, Funk, Soukous and other styles, often based on Vodun rhythms. Active since the late 1960s, and having recorded around 500 songs, they are still touring around the world today, playing in venues such as London's Barbican Centre. Compilations of their work have recently been issued through Analog Africa, Soundway Records and Popular African Music.

If these 14 tracks are representative of the 500 or so that had to be sifted through from this West African band's prolific output between 1970 and 1983, then let's have the boxed set pronto!

This is angular, punchy funk run through with vicious blasts of organ, and some of the finest oblique guitar riffs since Television. It's scary to consider that without the obsessive focus of label owner, Samy Ben Redjeb, this Benin band's music may never have seen the light of day again.

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Raduza - V Hore 2005

Some people have argued that in an ideal world, there would be no language barriers because everyone would speak the same language, but a monolingual world would be a boring place -- incredibly, sadly boring. Would we really want to live in a world in which Edith Piaf never sang in French, Antonio Carlos Jobim used no Portuguese, and Celia Cruz never uttered a word of Spanish? Of course not. That said, many English speakers allow the language barrier to prevent them from enjoying singers whose lyrics they don't understand, which is regrettable because V Hore is an enriching album even if you don't understand Raduza's lyrics (which are mostly in Czech). For those who don't speak Czech, the thing that makes the female vocals on V Hore (Raduza's third album for Indies Records in the Czech Republic) a winner isn't what is being said but how it is being said. The vocals on this album are not only passionate; they are delivered with tremendous conviction. Combine all that conviction with an abundance of haunting, brooding melodies, and Raduza has a recipe for creative success. V Hore, like Raduza's previous Indies releases ...Pri Mne Stuj and Andelové Z Nebe, is best described as Czech folk-rock. Raduzaobviously gets a great deal of inspiration from traditional East European folk, but American and British rock (including punk) and French pop are certainly influences as well. V Hore has its quiet, gently reflective moments, but most of the time, Raduza provides folk-rock that is as insistent as it is melancholy-sounding. Those who enjoyed ...Pri Mne Stuj and Andelové Z Nebe won't find V Hore to be any less rewarding; Raduza's excellence doesn't decrease one iota on this 2005 release. AMG.

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Otis Clay - Got to Find a Way 1990

Otis Clay made most of his best-known records in Memphis during the early '70s, but he's still universally hailed as Chicago's deep soul king. In a city filled to overflowing with legendary blues artists,Clay has become the proud standard-bearer for Chicago's enduring soul tradition.

Like so many of his contemporaries, Clay's intense vocal style reflects a gospel background. He made the secular jump in 1965, signing with Chicago's One-derful Records and issuing a series of gospel-tinged soul records that were a lot grittier than the customary Windy City soul sound. Clay inaugurated Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary in 1968 with a supercharged cover of the Sir Douglas Quintet's "She's About a Mover," produced by Rick Hall in Muscle Shoals shortly before the singer joined forces with Hi Records boss Willie Mitchell. With the relentlessly driving Hi Rhythm Section in tow, Clay waxed his biggest seller in 1972, "Trying to Live My Life Without You," later covered very successfully by Bob Seger.

Although Clay's tenure on Hi may have been his most commercially potent, he steadily recorded and gigged ever since. He is a genuine hero in Japan, where he's recorded two sizzling live albums filled with the churning grooves, punchy horns, and searing vocals that inevitably characterize the best deep soul -- no matter where it's recorded, a fact proved by another live set recorded in Switzerland in 2003, Respect Yourself, and released in 2005 by Blind Pig Records. In 2007, Clayreturned to the studio and recorded the gospel album Walk a Mile in My Shoes on his Chicago-based Echo label. AMG.

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Salif Keita - M'Bemba 2005

The Grammy nominated West African artist, Salif Keita, whose voice The Washington Post once declared as "one other mortals can only aspire to" returned after many years to Bamako, Mali to record M'Bemba, a remarkable, multifaceted collection which beautifully blends native choirs (comprised of his foster sisters), rolling hypnotic guitars, happily dancing percussion, and such indigenous instruments as ngoni lute and kora. These evoke the memory of Keita's ancestor, Sundiata Keita, the warrior king who founded the Mandingo Empire in the 13th century. Over the course of an hour, Keita -- whose globally successful 35-year career has somewhat offset the hardships he's faced in his homeland being an albino and a musician -- weaves a true tapestry of all of his favorite global influences. These include rock, soul, French chanson, and Afro-Cuban rhythms, all stirred up around his deep, guttural vocals, echoing chants, the seductive, jangling guitars, and a variety of earthy grooves. On the gentler reflections, like the opening track "Bobo," and the sweet, anthemic title track (enhanced by the female chorus), there's a hauntingly beautiful sense of history mixed with struggle and, ultimately, optimism. While the album will mostly be enjoyed by fans of real-deal African music, newcomers will hopefully be inspired to begin mining Keita's rich history as both a musician and a survivor. AMG.

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Quasar - Man Coda 1980

This is completely off-the-hook abstract Australian psych-rock. Evidently self-produced by the band and never formally distributed, copies of this super-limited pressing are creeping their way across the globe. Only 500 were ever pressed. Recorded direct to digital tape by just a drummer, bassist, and guitarist, the sounds run the gamut from surging, moody, textural, and nearly beatless masterpieces like “Man Coda” and “Reality’s Way” to the tense, jazzy, and angular “The Little Prince” to the stupid ill cut “Zeitgeist,” an all-out sonic rock assault that would make Les Claypool shit in his pants. This song also has an insane drum intro. Demented genius.

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Doug Sahm and The Sir Douglas Quintet - The Complete Mercury Masters 2005

Doug Sahm is one of the great figures in 20th century American music, which isn't quite the same thing as saying he's one of the best-known musicians. As the frontman of the Sir Douglas Quintet, he had a Top 20 hit with the garage rock classic "She's About a Mover" in 1966 and a Top 30 single with "Mendocino" three years later, but after that he settled into a small but intensely devoted cult following. Not that there weren't attempts to break him on a wider scale -- after the Quintet broke up, Atlantic launched a publicity blitz for a pair of solo albums in 1973 -- but they never quite clicked, probably because Sahm's music, no matter how brilliant it was, never was popular music. It was a wild, wooly blend of rock & roll, soul, country, blues, and Tex-Mex, as informed by the sunny vibes of hippiedom as it was by the rowdy spirit of garage rock. Sahm created this sound with the Sir Douglas Quintet in the late '60s and over the next three decades he never strayed from it, but those records that the band released between 1968 and 1971 (plus 1973's rarities round-up Rough Edges) remained at the core of his legacy, and for good reason: not only did they illustrate the breadth and depth of Sahm's ambition, they're simply dynamic rock & roll, truly visionary American roots music. What separated the Sir Douglas Quintet from their blues-rock, country-rock and hippie contemporaries is that there wasn't a shred of pretention in their music. All the genre bending and unpredictable juxtapositions flowed naturally, performed with the muscle of a roadhouse blues band and the warm, welcoming vibe of San Franciscan rockers. Of all their peers, the Band were the closest touchstone, in terms of scope and achievement, butthe Sir Douglas Quintet lacked that quintet's American gothic literary bent. They were simply a rock & roll band, out to have a good time and have others follow. As such, they never got quite as much critical respect in the traditional rock history books as they deserved, but the six LPs they released for Smash/Mercury constitute one of the strongest bodies of work for an American rock & roll band of the '60s.

Even if they were terrific, these Smash/Mercury records weren't always easy to find (which may be another reason why the Sir Douglas Quintet weren't given much credit in rock histories; critics can't review what they can't hear). They went out of print in the '70s and they were never reissued during the great CD-reissue boom of the late '80s and early '90s (they were compiled on the 22-track 1990 CD Best of Doug Sahm & the Sir Douglas Quintet 1968-1975). None of these LPs saw CD release until 2002, when Raven in Australia released 1970's 1+1+1=4 and 1971's The Return of Doug Saldaña on one CD, and the U.K.-based Acadia released all the albums -- the aforementioned pair, plus 1968's Sir Douglas Quintet+2=Honkey Blues, 1969's Mendocino and 1970's Together After Five -- with bonus tracks, which eventually covered everything that was on Rough Edges plus a few other odds and ends. This was a blessing, not just for longtime Sir Douglas fans but for the curious who never had a chance to easily hear this wonderful music, and their release has the unfortunate side-effect of making Hip-O Select's splendid five-disc box set The Complete Mercury Masters seem just a bit anti-climatic. Released just two years after the 2002 reissue campaign, The Complete Mercury Masters is housed in a hardcover book-sized wallet and contains all the music from the Acadia reissues, along with a handful of rarities, of varying interest. These rarities include a country version of "Texas Me," the four-song Mexican EP by the Quintet(featuring Spanish versions of four tunes, including "Mendocino" and "And It Didn't Even Bring Me Down"), a single Sahm produced for Roy Head and four Sahm-produced sides for Junior Parker, plus an entire disc of mono-single mixes. All this is good, especially the Sahm productions, but it's not material that's significant, particularly for those who already own the Acadia reissues. Those fans may be reluctant to spend $100 to get material they bought recently, even if the packaging on The Complete Mercury Masters is handsome and the sound is a considerable improvement on the Acadia issues (nevertheless these recordings will never sound amazing -- they were recorded cheaply and no amount of cleaning can make these tapes sound full-bodied. Also, part of the music's appeal is that it's greasy, gritty, and dirty, so some listeners might actually find the grungier Acadia mixes more appealing, even if the sound on this set is hardly clean and is faithful to the original records). For those listeners, purchasingThe Complete Mercury Masters is a judgment call -- are the rarities, the mono mixes and the remastering worth replacing your existing CDs? -- but for anybody that doesn't own the Acadia titles, this is flat-out essential. The converted already know how terrific these Smash/Mercury LPs are, and will be glad to get them all in one place, but this is a necessary purchase even for the curious, since this is tremendous music that gets stronger, better with age. The Complete Mercury Masters may be expensive, but consider it an investment that will pay you back tenfold, since this is truly priceless and timeless music. [The Complete Mercury Masters is a limited-edition release available only through www.hiposelect.com.] AMG.

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Jack Logan - Fundamentally Live At The 40 Watt 2006

Singer/songwriter Jack Logan was anything but the overnight success he appeared to be at first glance -- a prolific and gifted talent, he spent over a decade as an unknown before emerging as a critic's darling with his 1994 debut, Bulk. A native of southern Illinois, after high schoolLogan and his friend Kelly Keneipp relocated to Winder, GA, a small town located near Athens, a longtime musical hotbed home to acts ranging from R.E.M. to the B-52's. Logan garnered some underground notice during the mid-'80s for creating a comic book depicting R.E.M.guitarist Peter Buck as a superhero, but for the most part he languished . AMG. 

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Cheick Tidiane Seck - Guerrier 2013

Over the years, the musical exchanges between Africa and the West have been fascinating. African rhythms have had a direct or indirect impact on a variety of musical genres that started in the West -- everything from jazz, blues, R&B, and rap in the United States, to salsa, bachata-merengue, plena, samba, and cumbia in Latin America. And things came full circle when many of those western art forms influenced African pop in countries ranging from Ethiopia to Mozambique to Nigeria. The western influence is also quite strong in the Afro-pop of Mali, where Cheick-Tidiane Seck was born and raised. Recorded in 1999, 2002, and 2003 in three different cities (Paris, New York, and Los Angeles),MandinGroove thrives on the sort of east-meets-west energy that Manu Dibango, King Sunny Ade,Habib Koité, Mahmoud Ahmed, and the late Fela Kuti are all known for. AMG.

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