JIMMY HOLIDAY - Spread Your Love: The Complete Minit Singles 1966-1970

"Jimmy Holiday is probably best known as the co-writer of 'Put A Little Love In Your Heart,' 'All I Ever Need Is You' and a handful of other hit songs, including several for his friend and mentor, Ray Charles. But to connoisseurs of '60s soul, he is regarded as a singer of no small talent, with an individual style that made the release of each new single an important event.

This Kent compilation shines the spotlight on the recordings Jimmy made for Minit in the second half of the 1960s, a period in which he was at his peak as a vocalist and songwriter, working with some of the best musicians and producers of the era, and enjoying a hit or two along the way. Those sides mark him as a man who should have been a big star. He might well have become one, but for a busy schedule writing for others and health problems that led to his death at the age of just 54." - Ace Records

VA - Ciao Bella! Italian Girl Singers Of The 1960s

"Connoisseurs of 1960s girl-pop have been well served in the CD era, particularly those with a preference for American or British singers. Good music, of course, is not exclusive to the English-speaking world, and collections devoted to the female vocalists of France, Japan, Spain and Germany are also available, but to the best of my knowledge their Italian counterparts have not been anthologised. If Ciao Bella! (released as a 24-track CD or 12-track LP) is the first of its kind, let’s hope it’s not the last. In a country known for its song festivals, most notably the prestigious event held annually in Sanremo, lushly orchestrated ballads have always been especially popular, and a few exceptional examples are featured here. Ciao Bella! opens, however, with a selection of uptempo titles." - Ace Records

THE SUPREME JUBILEES - It'll All Be Over

"A band of brothers and cousins, the group was founded from two families: brothers Joe and Dave Kingsby plus Dave’s son David Kingsby Jr., and keyboardist Leonard Sanders plus his brothers Phillips (drummer), Tim (bassist), and Melvin (tenor). The Sanders clan grew up singing together in the Witness of Jesus Christ church in Fresno, CA, where dad Marion was pastor. Guitarist Larry Price completed the line-up that recorded the group’s first (and, prophetically, only) album, It'll All Be Over.

If God had a disco, the DJ would be playing The Supreme Jubilees. 'We won’t have to cry no more,' the tuxedo-clad group would sing, in high, angelic vocals over smooth grooves. 'It’ll all be over.' Prepare to dance and contemplate death all at the same time." - Light In The Attic

JORDAN DE LA SIERRA - Gymnosphere: Song Of The Rose

"Before New Age hit terra firma at the dawn of the 1980s, the classically-trained Bay Area composer Jordan De La Sierra's consciousness soared with cosmic concepts. With cues and lessons from the great minimalists La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Pandit Pran Nath, and help from the venerable public radio program Hearts of Space, De La Sierra embarked on journey in alternate tunings and resounding reverberations, transporting entranced listeners from the Golden Gates to the intergalactic." - Numero Group

ARTHUR - Dreams and Images

"If you had met Arthur Lee Harper in 1967, around the time he was writing his debut album, it probably wouldn’t have been too long before he introduced himself as a poet. That might seem strange, considering he did not actually publish poems. Instead, he played guitar and wrote songs—not verse set to music, but rhyming lyrics with verses and choruses, delicate melodies and Romantic imagery. He was then what we might call today a singer-songwriter, but the '60s being the '60s, Harper and his friends Stephen John Kalinich and Mark Lindsey Buckingham had grander ambitions than simply strumming pop tunes or providing entertainment. Poetry was an aspiration, a true calling, a means of peeling away the veneer of society and exposing some hard human truths both beautiful and revolting.

Before Harper signed with Lee Hazlewood’s LHI Records, he was living at the YMCA and sharing bags of potatoes with his friends. Dreams and Images, released under his first name to almost no fanfare, did not do much to change those conditions, and this reissue does not present it as a lost or unheralded classic. Instead, it's another piece of the LHI puzzle that Light in the Attic has been putting together for a few years now. In that regard, it's a revealing artifact of that scene, as well as a gentle statement of purpose by a struggling poet." - Pitchfork

VA - Native North America Vol. 1: Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985

From the impressive range of styles, regions and eras covered (as well as the hours of research that undoubtedly went into this compilation) to the stunning layout and typesetting, Kevin Howes and co. have put together one awe-inspiring document!

"[Native North America]'s power stems from the convergence of familiar influences (Beatles, Stones, Dylan, especially Neil Young) with the traditions, languages and lyrical concerns of the Inuit, Métis and First Nations peoples. Apart from Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Saskatchewan-born, US-raised Cree singer who became a 1960s folk star, this strand of North American music has been almost entirely forgotten.

Bringing it to light was a Herculean task for Vancouver-based DJ and compiler Kevin Howes. He began collecting these records 15 years ago, rummaging through record stores, private libraries, dilapidated warehouses and neglected corners of radio station archives in order to find artists who were 'off the grid.'

'The thing that I found appalling and shocking was there was no information available,' he says. 'I’d find a record somewhere and Google the artist and I was shooting blanks. I had to go straight to the source to ask for context and the stories behind the music.'" - The Guardian

ARIEL KALMA - An Evolutionary Music: Original Recordings 1972-1979

"Ariel Kalma's boundary-blurring electronic music is heard here in radiant detail across a selection of work spanning his early free-jazz and spoken-word trips to his infinite modular synthesizer and analogue rhythm-machine meditations. Kalma's story is one of world travel, musical discovery and ego abandonment. Yet for an artist who often discarded public recognition in favor of the ascetic truths in musicmaking, An Evolutionary Music offers the imprint of an outright auteur.

Born in France, but rarely in one place for long, Kalma's 1970s migrations took flight through the decade's furthest spaces of musical and spiritual invention. As a hired horn for well-known French groups, the young musician toured as far as India in 1972, a place where Kalma found an antidote to rock 'n' roll's glitz and glamour in sacred music traditions. Kalma would later return to India and learn circular breathing techniques enabling him to sustain notes without pause against tape-looping harmonies configured through his homemade effects units.

Those effects evolved from Kalma's loyalty to a beloved dual ReVox setup—two tape machines 'chained' together to form a primitive delay unit. Over looped saxophone melodies, Kalma would mix in all shades of polyphonic color, synthesizing fragments of poetry with ambient space or setting modal flute melodies to rippling drum machine patterns and starlit field recordings. The results collapse distinctions between “electro-acoustic”, “biomusicology” and “ambient” categorization." - RVNG Intl.

EDDY GILES - Southern Soul Brother: The Murco Recordings 1967-1969

"Losin' Boy" appeared on Volume 2 of the classic Deep Soul Treasures series compiled by Dave Godin; a full compilation has been much sought after by lovers of Southern soul.

"Shreveport, Louisiana's Eddy Giles was the star of Dee Marais' Murco label, on which he released a handful of singles between 1967 and 1969, scoring with the regional hit 'Losin’ Boy.' Southern Soul Brother gathers together all his recordings for the label for the first time ever, including the single that was licensed out to Silver Fox. It highlights a talented artist who was adept at covering all the bases required of soul singers of the time from ballads such as 'Happy Man' and 'While I'm Away (Baby, Keep The Faith)' to the up-tempo dance style of 'Eddy’s Go Go Train.'" - Ace Records

Shreveport, Louisiana’s Eddy Giles was the star of Dee Marais’ Murco label, on which he released a handful of singles between 1967 and 1969, scoring with the regional hit ‘Losin’ Boy’. “Southern Soul Brother” gathers together all his recordings for the label, for the first time ever, including the single that was licensed out to Silver Fox. It highlights a talented artist who was adept at covering all the bases required of soul singers of the time, from ballads such as ‘Happy Man’ and ‘While I’m Away (Baby, Keep The Faith)’ to the up-tempo dance style of ‘Eddy’s Go Go Train’.

Access to the Murco master tapes allows us to include three previously unreleased recordings: a bluesy alternative version of his final Murco single ‘Ain’t Gonna Worry No More’, the wistful ‘It Takes More’, and ‘Pins And Needles’, a country song given an exemplary soul treatment. ‘Love With A Feeling’ also verges on the blues, while ‘Soul Feeling’ is revered by fans of southern funk.

- See more at: http://acerecords.co.uk/southern-soul-brother-the-murco-recordings-1967-1969#sthash.MmEqlU6Z.dpuf

BESSIE JONES with the Georgia Sea Island Singers and others - Get In Union: Recordings by Alan Lomax 1969-1966

"Students of ethnomusicology and folk music enthusiasts fortunate enough to hear the two or three LPs of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers can tell you the thrill of hearing the group’s music for the first time.

The singers' dedication to preserving a music with roots that run all the way back to West Africa has enabled generations to hear something of the foundation of spirituals, the blues, jazz, gospel, and many other genres.

Thanks to Tompkins Square, a leader in black sacred music reissue projects, many thousands more can experience the Georgia Sea Island Singers with the release of Get In Union. And for those who have heard the group before, take heed: more than half of the 51 selections, recorded by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1966, have not been issued publicly until now." - Journal of Gospel Music

VA - The Soul Of Designer Records (4CD)

Fans of the Sinner's Crossroads podcast or the stellar I Heard The Angels Singing compilation from last year will find much to like in this 4CD set of soulful, impassioned gospel.

"Between 1967 and 1977 Designer label founder Style Wooten and his studio main man Roland Janes, a heroic figure in Memphis music, produced between 400 and 500 gospel singles. Many of the artists they recorded came from Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, but as the label’s reputation grew they began arriving from more far flung locales—Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, Ohio, the Carolinas, Florida, California—sometimes literally waiting in line for their turn to cut at Janes' Sonic Studios." - Big Legal Mess

GILBERTO GIL - Gilbertos Samba

One to rate alongside Caetano Veloso's recent string of consistent studio releases, Gilbertos Samba is a classy return to form produced in a tastefully sparse/stripped-down manner that flatters both singer (G. Gil) and songbook (J. Gilberto) alike.

"In the realm of Brazilian music there's only one bigger Gilberto than Gilberto Gil, and that is none other than the patron god of bossa nova, the legendary João Gilberto. In Gilbertos Samba, Gil pays tribute to the master in a two-fold way, firstly by recording his own versions of songs indelibly associated withJoão Gilberto (plus two originals by Gil), and secondly by doing something similar to what Gilberto did on his classic 1981 album Brasil. Gilberto recorded Brasil together with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Maria Bethânia, but chose a repertoire of standards by composers Ary Barroso and Dorival Caymmi, effectively melding the three most important movements of Brazilian popular music into a single album, the sambas of the '30s and '40s, the bossa nova of the '60s, and the tropicalismo of the '70s. After 33 years, it's Gil who plays cultural synthesist by bringing together the bossa of João Gilberto, his own not-too-shabby musical legacy, and input from a young generation of Brazilian artists who have, silently but steadily, become a leading force in the contemporary scene, the trio ofDomenico Lancelotti, Pedro Sá, and Moreno Veloso (son of Caetano), as well as his own son Bem Gil and Danilo Caymmi, son of Dorival and Nana Caymmi--in short, just about the entire history of Brazilian popular music under one roof." - Allmusic

VA - Arkansas At 78rpm: Corn Dodgers & Hoss Hair Pullers

Dust-to-Digital seem to have kept quiet on the release front this year (compared to the bounty of reissues and archival releases they've graced us with in the recent past), so we were especially glad to see this set of digitized rare/regional '30s 78s come in!

"Produced by April and Lance Ledbetter utilizing transfers from the Music Memory archive, Arkansas at 78rpm features original recordings made between 1928-1937. The CD and the 32-page booklet serve as a companion album to the newly-released photograph book, Making Pictures: Three for a Dime by Maxine Payne. All of the photos in this package are from the same cache of photographs taken by the Massengil family in their mobile photo-booth trailer throughout rural Arkansas in the 1930s-1940s." - Dust-to-Digital

VA - Spiritual Jazz 5: The World

Yet more beguilingly rhythmic, mainly-modal workouts from the Jazzman vaults, this time expanding out to include cuts from around the world. As per usual with this cratedigger-centric series, nearly all the artists compiled are brand-new names to us, resulting in one of the best (and, given how rare these original records are, cheapest!) ways to expand one's awareness of the global jazz scene(s) of the '60s and '70s.

"Until it was swept aside by the pop explosion of the 1960s, jazz was the most popular modern sound on earth. From the New World and the Caribbean to Africa, across the Soviet Bloc and the British Empire to the Far East, jazz music was embraced, adopted, played and enjoyed.

Having examined spiritual jazz as it was expressed in the US, and followed its messengers and influences in Europe, this fifth installment of our Spiritual Jazz series presents jazz from the rest of the world: a collection of jazz messages hailing from the four corners of the world that are united in their diverse treatment of the jazz idiom." - Jazzman Records

NGOZI FAMILY - Day Of Judgement

The utterly unique combination of metallic/proto-punky fuzzed-out guitar, crudely funky drumming, and charmingly awkward English singing that was '70s Zam-rock has electrified these ears for some time now, in no small part due to the efforts of Now-Again, who have now released what might be the most fun and exciting record of that prime era of Zambian bands that we've yet had the chance to be hipped to!

"Day of Judgement was released in 1976, the same year as other now-famous Zamrock albums, from WITCH's Lazy Bones!! to Rikki Ililonga’s Zambia to Musi-O-Tunya’s Give Love To Your Children, all reissued on Now-Again, but Day Of Judgement sounds like none of its counterparts. Part of that stems from its frenzied primitivism, the Ngozi Family's attempt to overcome a lack of musical acumen with sheer force of will, [...] a full-on aural assault that sounds as wild nearly forty years after its release as it must have sounded in the developing Zamrock landscape from which it emerged. We listen to this anachronistic yet prescient album now as a wholly original, completely unpredictable album in line with those from mavericks from across the world – from the Ramones to the Sex Pistols to Death. Though it’s been over two decades since Paul Ngozi’s passing, his voice and vision still seem exciting, powerful, unique, unvarnished, new." - Now-Again

VA - Cracking The Cosimo Code

Cosimo Matassa, who passed away very recently, was an essential figure in the development of R&B, rock'n'roll and soul in New Orleans. Cracking The Cosimo Code provides a great taste of just some of the incredible talent who recorded in Matassa's studio in the Sixties. 

"What is the Cosimo Code? Quite simply, it's an ongoing, website-based discographical tool at www.cosimocode.com documenting the 1960s recordings from Cosimo Matassa’s studios in New Orleans. This CD release has been compiled by website co-founders Red 'Soul Detective' Kelly, John 'Sir Shambling' Ridley and John Broven. It brings to life the Cosimo Code data, unveiling many of the mysteries surrounding New Orleans R&B and soul recordings from the post-Fats Domino era.

As the '60s started, Domino and his producer Dave Bartholomew, with their timeless brand of R&B, still dominated the New Orleans recording scene. Soon there would be a changing of the guard, led by producers Allen Toussaint, Harold Battiste, Wardell Quezergue and Eddie Bo. Under these younger men, the music would take on a funkier soul edge while still imbued with the eternal New Orleans street rhythms." - Ace Records

VA - DJ Snowboy Presents The Good Foot

DJ Snowboy runs a club night called The Good Foot in London's Soho district. This compilation gives listeners an excellent and accurate picture of the exciting '60s R&B, soul, funk and Latin grooves Snowboy spins for the club's lucky patrons.

"Madame Jojo's, in an outpost of old Soho where Snowboy wears his DJ hat, is where he runs his weekly club night, the Good Foot. In the past, this central London area was known for its bohemian nightlife and shady characters. Most of that has gone now, replaced by modern life's big brands and identikit shops, but step down the velvet-lined stairwell into Jojo's subterranean space and you're into a lost world where the music played by Snowboy and his guests keeps an audience of enthusiastic dancers glued to the club's sunken dancefloor.

The Good Foot plays the best of '60s soul, R&B and latin with a touch of funk, and Snowboy always looks to find a perfect blend of classics and records that you are unlikely to have heard in a club before. Our compilation attempts to recreate the feeling of a night at the club, and features many of the tunes that have become signature plays there." - Ace Records

VA - Brent: Superb 60s Soul Sounds

The Brent record label released soul from across the States, and some of the best it had to offer is found on this new Ace/Kent collection.

"Bob Shad ran several record labels between the late '50s and the mid-'70s, Brent being the one he chose to issue the majority of his '60s soul output. He made good contacts around the USA while working for Mercury and used them when he launched his labels...Shad released music from any area that was happening, and was one of the first to venture into Detroit soul, before it had really exploded." - Ace Records

LES AMBASSADEURS DU MOTEL DE BAMAKO - S/T (2CD)

Salif Keita's mid-'70s move from The Rail Band to Les Ambassadeurs is described in Florent Mazzoleni's liner notes as having been spurred on by a desire "to sing new songs, songs that described life in contemporary Mali in the second decade of the country's independence." Along with Teranga Beat's recent live archival set Dexter Johnson & Le Super Star de Dakar Live à L'Étoile, Les Ambassadeurs Du Motel... is yet another irresistible snapshot of Latin jazz-tinged West African music at its height.

"A specially mastered double album compilation of the original 1975 - 1977 recordings by one West Africa's greatest bands, the one which first set Salif Keita on his road to worldwide success. Including tracks never released digitally or on CD before, also containing the first ever release of two recordings from the vaults of Radio Mali." - Sterns Music

"Released to coincide with their historic reunion shows, this is an exquisite double-album reminder of the early days of one of Africa's greatest bands. Les Ambassadeurs were assembled in the early 1970s by a senior member of the Mali's military junta to entertain VIPs at a Bamako motel, and included great musicians from across west Africa, including the late Kanté Manfila on guitar, keyboard player Idrissa Soumaoro and guitarist Amadou Bagayoko (now a star with Amadou and Mariam)." - The Guardian

SMOKE DAWSON - Fiddle

Recorded as a lone private-press release in 1971, Fiddle's a slight misnomer in that there's a minute-long solo bagpipe piece thrown in amidst the unaccompanied traditional jigs, barndances, and instrumental folk ballads, resulting in a one-of-a-kind, one-off branch between the old and the not-so-old weird America.

"Fiddle offers a fitting document of all Dawson's qualities: precision, humor, and wildness are all on display here. The longest track on the album, the three-part 'Connaughtman's Rambles/Devil's Dream/March Venerie,' gives Dawson an opportunity to show his chops and even, during the third section, to pick up the bagpipes. 'Drowsy Maggie' and 'Turkey In The Straw' also spotlight what could be termed Dawson's wildness, or, better, his loose precision: he misses not a note but is often content to let them slide together, intoning heart and informality, evoking an impulsive dance. 'Wild Goose Chase' and 'Cackling Hen' capture the frenetic nature of their subjects and are as like to evoke a chuckle as a tapping foot." - PopMatters

KEITH CROSS & PETER ROSS - Bored Civilians

This recent reissue from Esoteric Recordings first caught our eye when it received a glowing writeup in MOJO magazine. Keith Cross & Peter Ross' Bored Civilians came after Cross' departure from short-lived prog-rock group T2. He took a different path with this next project with Ross, although Bored Civilians' Laurel Canyon-esque folk-rock has enough proggy touches to mark this album as a uniquely British take on the California sound.

"Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of an official re-mastered edition of Bored Civilians, the only album by the duo of Keith Cross & Peter Ross. Cross had earned plaudits as a young guitar virtuoso with the power trio T2 (who recorded an album for Decca Records in 1970). By 1972 his music had developed still further when he teamed up with Ross to record this marvellous album for Decca Records with guest musicians such as Nick Lowe, Jimmy Hastings and B.J. Cole. Highly sought after by collectors of the 'progressive' era, Bored Civilians has been newly re-mastered from the original Decca master tapes and includes two rare B-sides as bonus tracks. This reissue restores the original album artwork and includes a new essay." - Cherry Red