Staff picks

Loved dearly by his contemporaries and sorely missed since his death in 2005 the story of the life of Kofi Kwarko 'Kiki' Gyan is one often told with warning by his friends to the new generation of aspiring Ghanaian popstars.

Dozens of cherished recordings were made during the legendary “golden age” of Ethiopian music, an era stretching from the early 1960’s through the mid-1970’s. 

Hailu Mergia weaves Moog and DX7 synthesizers, Rhodes electric piano and rhythm machine into the rich harmonic layering of his accordion, creating hauntingly psychedelic, elegantly arranged instrumentals.

Space 1.8 is Nala Sinephro’s debut album; each contributing piece is part of a connected, collaborative and deeply personal body of music.

Originally released at the end of the '60s, Hot Buttered Soul set the precedent for how soul would evolve in the 70's - simultaneously establishing Isaac Hayes as a major music force.

We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service is the sixth and final studio album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released on November 11, 2016, by Epic Records.

Odd Future frontman releases his new 15 track album on Columbia Records.

The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital - with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat - has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.

With DJ Drama in tow, Tyler thrives in the realm of the rap mixtape, which allows him great freedom to explore every facet of his talent as a producer, writer, and vocalist. 

Of Lonnie Liston Smith's many outstanding achievements, his work with The Cosmic Echoes will surely go down in history as his finest.

It was Flying Dutchman that put out some of Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes's most vital work. Despite their groundbreaking albums, though, they are often overlooked by hardcore jazz nuts and we cannot work out why.

Classic 1972 album. If there’s one word to summarize Donald Byrd’s career, it’s undoubtedly “eclectic.” 

Filled with jazz solos and politically-charged lyrics, it appers to be a companion piece to Butterfly, rather than a standalone record. All of the tracks are untitled, save for the date they were recorded.

Teebs' debut drops sweet and heavy on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, following the excellent Lorn album with a more lushed-out and hazy experience.

Floating Points’ first album in four years, Crush, twists whatever you think you know about him on its head again. 

Actress, real name Darren Jordan Cunningham, known to friends as DAZ releases his new album Karma and Desire on Ninja Tune.

In Shades of Blue Madlib, hip-hop producer extraordinaire, tackles Blue Note's soul-jazz catalogue, enjoying free rein in the fabled label's vaults.

As promised - Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet sticks to his promise and drops his brand new set Sixteen Oceans on his own Text label. 

Four of the five original Byrds were aboard for this folk-rock landmark. Within months of its release in the summer of 1967, David Crosby would move on and the group would enter a permanent period of flux.

David Bowie's last curtain call and very possibly one of his greatest albums ever made. Essential.

One of the eternal issues of record collecting is the question of how good records actually become rare.

The contributions of the late Detroit producer James DeWitt Yancey - better known to the world as J Dilla- to the world of hip-hop can't be overstated, and nowhere is his legacy more apparent than his work as a member of Slum Village.

Gil Evans to Miles Davis…. Holger Czukay to the ensemble known as Can….Jean Claude Vannier to Serge Gainsbourg on Histoire de Melody Nelson. That’s the only way to explain the specificity of Four Tet and Madlib’s collaboration, in this special album that showcases a two-decade long friendship that has resulted in an album that follows Madlib’s classics like Quasimoto’s The Unseen, Madvillainy and his Pinata and Bandana albums with Freddie Gibbs.

The last in his capitol trilogy, Earth Rot is visionary composer / arranger / producer David Axelrod’s third album.

Issued in 1975, this is the articulation of Zambia’s Zamrock ethos.

With their old-school analog aesthetic and minimalist post-dub sound, Britain's Mount Kimbie straddle the line between atmospheric art music and pop accessibility.

For 26-year-old Steve Ellison's deservedly hyped third album, Flying Lotus loosened the reins and set out to make Cosmogramma, which his label, Warp, promoted as a space opera of sorts.

Daniel Avery described Ultra Truth as an album "about looking directly into the darkness, not running away from it."

For his dense, mellow second album, Ruban Nielson continues to challenge himself and his audience by working within the detailed sonic framework crafted on Unknown Mortal Orchestra's 2011 debut.

Love Is Overtaking Me contains 21 tracks recorded between 1974 and 1990. 

The xx producer and percussionist Jamie Smith takes a stab at recontextualizing Gil Scott-Heron's excellent 2010 album, I'm New Here.

The album moves from mellow soulful moods, into screaming disco-jazz-fusion, samba funk, synth boogie and ends with a tough 160bpm Batucada workout.

Floating Points’ personal collection of global soul, ambient, jazz and folk treasures form the latest in the warmly revered Late Night Tales series.

The double album is Lamar's first studio album release since Damn (2017), his first album release under his creative collective PGLang, and his final project with TDE (under which he previously released four albums and was one of their flagship artists).

Irreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album OPEN THE GATES is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us

The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album ‘By Myself’, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’.