Africa Negra – Antologia Vol. 2 (Bongo Joe)
São Toméan group África Negra were at the peak of their popularity in the 1980s, and that’s where Antologia Vol. 2 picks up. Featuring 13 of the group’s lesser-known tracks and some wonderfully long cuts, the second installment of Bongo Joe’s África Negra series is every bit as satisfying as the first. Their music holds up well, catchy ostinati in balance with atmospheric touches that make for sunny earworms. Nimble puxas, rumbas, and soukous, some previously unreleased, put the group’s brilliant, ever-changing lineup on full display.
No matter the style, each track is a chance for them to let loose with a sunny disposition, wide reverb, and warm vocal harmonies. Skillfully made, the music here nevertheless feels like a breeze, whether it rises from the darker, cooler tones of lovely “Lourença” or blows at the brassy heights of “Lentlada Cachelo (San Lena)”. África Negra have always been a group worth revisiting, and the more reissues emerge, the better. – Adriane Pontecorvo
Air – Moon Safari (25th Anniversary Edition) (Rhino)
Air’s seminal debut, Moon Safari, got the 25th-anniversary treatment and received some nice updates to help their most devoted fans celebrate the occasion. The most critical addition to the two CD/one Blu-ray set is the release of the studio album in Spatial Atmos. The chillout electronica of Air perfectly lends itself to this format, assuming listeners have the right home setup to take full advantage.
The second disc of rarities is highlighted by previously unreleased “Dirty Hiroshima” and a live cover of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”, which sounds more like Pink Floyd at their most psychedelic, making it worth the price alone. That CD contains mostly unearthed material but includes some genre-bending Live BBC takes heard on the tenth-anniversary reissue. The Blu-ray of the 1998 documentary Eating, Sleeping, Waiting & Playing, directed by Mike Mills, is a nice addition for anyone who missed out last time or hoping to upgrade their now archaic DVD. – Patrick Gill
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded Edition) (Warp)
There are few records as inscrutable as Aphex Twin‘s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, even in the shadowy world of ambient music. With its glyph-like song titles and hypnotic loops, the closest company would be Brian Eno‘s genre-defining Music for Airports and the clinical chillout room austerity of Pete Namlook’s Fax+ label. While Eno’s installations may soundtrack real places, however futuristic they may be, Aphex Twin’s rippling harps and digital angels sound like a German expressionist film of a bone and ivory labyrinth – blissful, peaceful, and impossibly beautiful one second and nightmarishly hellish the next. If there were ever a document that would benefit from an expanded, clarified edition, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II would be it.
This year’s Selected Ambient Works Vol. II saw Richard D. James’s seminal ambient statement pressed to vinyl for the first time since the early 1990s. For the occasion, it gets a bright, spiffy touchup and paint job, polishing Aphex Twin’s gossamer skeins of ghostly synths and alien choruses to a bright, crisp modernist pop art palette, revealing the heavenly highs and infernal depths of Aphex Twin’s dreamscapes. A bonus track seals the deal, making the Selected Ambient Works Vol. II expanded reissue an essential purchase for ambient heads and analog purists. – J. Simpson
Beastie Boys – Ill Communication (Deluxe Edition) (Capitol)
Ill Communication is arguably the Beastie Boys’ best album, culminating in a sequence of influential recordings that they never improved on. Pivotal in bringing hip-hop to white audiences, their 1986 debut, License to Ill, quickly established their fame with frat boy numbers like “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)”. Beastie Boys’ sophomore effort, Paul’s Boutique, went in an entirely different direction with its dense production, providing hip-hop’s answer to Sgt. Pepper’s.
In contrast, Ill Communication has a looseness and tactile performativity similar to its immediate predecessor, Check Your Head. The exuberant single “Sabotage” captures this ethos and the energy of the album as a whole. It may well be their defining statement. The music video directed by Spike Jonze, which satirizes a 1970s cop show, fixed the song as part of the cultural zeitgeist. Like the detective characters at the end of the video, everyone walked away from Ill Communication looking good. – Christopher J. Lee
David Bowie – Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! (Parlophone)
This lushly presented five-CD + Blu-ray box set covers the period when David Bowie conceived and recorded his iconic 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Beginning with rough acoustic demos of “So Long 60s” (an early sketch of “Moonage Daydream”) and “Hang on to Yourself”, the set reveals Bowie’s songwriting process at its most fertile. Rehearsal recordings from Bowie’s residence, Haddon Hall, capture the birth of the Spiders from Mars, as Mick Ronson’s thick guitar tone defined the group’s sound with support from drummer Woody Woodmansey and bassist Trevor Bolder.
“Starman”, “Soul Love”, “Lady Stardust”, “Moonage Daydream”, and other Ziggy Stardust favorites all appear several times over the five CDs – sometimes in live versions recorded for BBC radio, other times in raw studio versions as the album took shape. A few callbacks to Hunky Dory appear in live and radio performances of “Changes”, “Life on Mars”, and “Queen Bitch”. But the best moments are the first-rate outtakes from the Ziggy Stardust sessions, including “Holy Holy”, “Velvet Goldmine”, and “Sweet Head”. Some of these reappear on the draft version of the album entitled Waiting for the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth), contained on the Blu-ray disc and released as a standalone LP. The 5.1 surround sound mix of the final version of Ziggy Stardust also appears on the Blu-ray. – Peter Thomas Webb
Can – Live in Paris 1973 (Mute)
Damo Suzuki, the legendary lead vocalist of Can, passed away this past year on 9 February at the age of 74 from cancer. An outpouring of heartfelt tributes quickly followed. Live in Paris 1973 is part of an ongoing series of archival releases, and this LP is distinguished by Suzuki’s irreplaceable presence. Recorded at L’Olympia in Paris on 12 May 1973, this album reflects Can’s breakthrough work at that point, including classic material from Ege Bamyasi (1972). Consisting of only five tracks but lasting for an hour and a half, Live in Paris 1973 displays Can’s reputation for long, improvisational jams of acid jazz/psychedelic rock. This is immersive music that admittedly is not to everyone’s taste. Still, this LP is slow-building with insistent, repetitive tempos that create an aural space for instrumental exploration and expression. At its best, the effect is entirely hypnotic. – Christopher J. Lee
Cocteau Twins – Four-Calendar Café / Milk & Kisses (4AD)
The two final albums by Cocteau Twins had never been released on LP in North America until this year when 4AD presented them on 180-gram vinyl. Digipak CD editions also arrived, bolstering the Cocteau Twins’ legacy at a time when the dream pop they helped invent has enjoyed an unexpected revival.
Four-Calendar Café, initially released in 1993, is the more idiosyncratic of the two albums. Songs like “Know Who You Are at Every Age” and “Bluebeard” bring Elizabeth Frazer’s infamously cryptic lyrics into sharper focus with revelations about her breakup with bandmate Robin Guthrie. The ethereal flourishes familiar to fans inhabit both albums, although Milk & Kisses meets the 1990s halfway with earthier guitar riffs on songs like “Violaine” and “Tishbite”. Cocteau Twins adapted their signature sound as technology and trends caught up with their advanced vision. Four-Calendar Café and Milk & Kisses were the final testaments in this process, a fine end to a peerless career. – Peter Thomas Webb
Cookie Crew – Pick Up on This: 1987-1992 (Cherry Red)
Cookie Crew are rap legends and pioneers of female-fronted UK hip-hop and rap. They were dismissed as a British take on Salt N’ Pepa for too long. Though their tenure was far too short, their contribution to 1980s rap is still essential, and this compilation gathers the duo’s best work, making a case for their crucial place in the history of 20th-century British rap. Pick Up on This is a definitive anthology for the group, collecting their two studio albums, a handful of singles, and some fantastic remixes. It’s a one-stop shop to assess this talented duo’s estimable legacy and output.
Like much pop-heavy rap from the 1980s, a large part of Cookie Crew’s sound is golden age hip-hop with significant influences of dance and house. The ladies – MC Remedee and Susie Q – first found success with the dance outfit, the Beatmasters, with the club hit “Rok Da House” in 1987. Cookie Crew released their first album, Born This Way, in 1989, which spun off several hits, including UK top-20 hit “Got to Keep On”. Their sophomore album, 1991’s Fade to Black, would be their final. Both records are on this collection in their entirety, and they’re solid rap albums with some catchy pop-rap hits that bear the hallmarks of late 1980s dance rap: raucous samples, propulsive beats, and chant-like raps. The real find of Pick Up on This is the slew of remixes: Cookie Crew shone brightly in the dance clubs. – Peter Piatkowski
Miles Davis – Miles in France 1963 & 1964 – Miles Davis Quintet: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 (Columbia / Legacy)
With a Discogs page listing over 1,000 releases and an official discography of at least several hundred albums, EPs, reissues, compilations, and box sets, can a new Miles Davis collection be anything other than barrel scrapings? It’s a testament to Davis’ bottomless genius, as well as the curatorial instincts of Legacy Records that this lavish collection of six CDs or eight vinyl LPs is so much more than just a historical curiosity. Miles in France 1963 & 1964 – Miles Davis Quintet: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 is legitimately mandatory listening for anybody with an interest in modern jazz.
Miles in France 1963 & 1964 captures what is considered Davis’ second great quintet at a unique point in their trajectory, abandoning standards like “Stella by Starlight” or “My Funny Valentine” in favor of original compositions, which would soon blossom into a whole new style of jazz with the birth of fusion towards the end of the decade. These French live recordings feel like the last stand of the old guard, with Davis, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, George Coleman, and, later, Wayne Shorter feeling like a gang of John Ford gunslingers staring down the new decade with their fingers itching for the trigger.
It’s still got the same considered cool and careful poise of the late 1950s recordings that made Davis a legend, as well as its fair share of elegant, black-tie chamber jazz, but you can tell the fuse is sizzling, about to detonate. Add in the fact that Miles in France 1963 & 1964 includes over four-and-a-half hours of previously unreleased recordings, and you get an unmissable archival document that’s sure to fascinate Miles Davis completists, jazz buffs, and 20th-century musical historians alike. – J. Simpson
Bob Dylan – The 1974 Live Recordings (Legacy)
Do you have a Bob Dylan superfan in your life? The 1974 Live Recordings box set celebrates the 50th anniversary of Dylan’s return to touring that year with all professionally recorded shows with the Band (yes, 27 CDs worth of material). It also includes new liner notes by music journalist Elizabeth Nelson, a nice touch for anybody hoping to dig into so much new material. The 417 previously unreleased live recordings offer a glimpse of what it would have been like had nugs.net existed half a century ago. For most of us, the 20-song digital sampler should suffice. In either case, the recordings showcase Dylan, the exceptional live performer backed by a dynamic group of musicians. With so many classics night in and out, any set should offer an enjoyable listening session. – Patrick Gill