Back catalogue: Reggae

Review: The talented vocalists Zion Irie and Ras Tweed grace us with their powerful voices once more here. They come over vibrant riddims crafted by Macca Dread and supported by an exceptional ensemble that includes Benyah who adds soulful brass, Crucial Rob who brings rhythmic depth on kete and cuica, while the Irie Mates deliver uplifting backing vocals and bluesman Danos enhances the sound with his harmonica. With conscious lyrics and dynamic instrumentation, their collaboration blends artistry and energy and the final touch of excellence comes from mastering by Amir El Sawah, ensuring the music resonates with real clarity and low-end impact.

Review: Back in 2006 French dub bands High Tone and Zenzile first joined forces to create the Zentone project, and nearly 20 years later they realigned to go even further into the echo chamber. The resulting album, Chapter 2, is a testament to both bands' long-standing dedication to dub and the way they've each managed to put their own stamps on the sound. There are some notable guests, not least the late, great Nazamba whose gravelly tone remains an unmatched force in modern reggae vocalists, and Rod Taylor lighting up 'Hotter Than Hot'. Dub devotees, listen up.

Review: Label affiliates Mytron and Zongamin make a combined return to the ever-on-point Canadian stable Multi Kulti, delivering an extended selection of typically off-kilter, genre-bending sonic mastery. In what appears to be a match made in the leftfield heavens, the duo join forces to explore dance-ish music's outer reaches, blending tribal motifs with 8-bit sampling and all manner of wonkiness. From the blissful bells of Conjunction With Reality to the bass-heavy throb of GHX, there is unsurprisingly plenty to savour here. Opening cut '08932168' blends enchanting lead melodies with rolling polyrhythms and dubbed-out effects before the equatorial percussion of 'Calliope Omniglot' makes way for the wiggy atmospherics of the collection's title track. Highly recommended.

Review: An incredible roster is drafted for this very rare rethink and revisitation of work by the mighty Dutch oddities ZEA, a band most probably won't be too familiar with, and, as a quick Google will tell you, are definitely not ZE:A, a South Korean boy band who make decidedly more chart friendly (in South East Asia at least) forms of music. Instead, these Netherlanders are known for their Kraut, kosmische, post punk, DIY electro stylings, and those building blocks make for some excellent reworking courtesy of a cast from various sites of steeped musical heritage. Andy Moor (The Ex, Amsterdam), Desmond Denker, Phanton, and Begritty (Cologne), Yurke (Dusseldorf), Istari Lasterfahrer (Hamburg), Dubby King Knarf (Knarf Rellom, Hamburg) all offer their own takes on that which was already difficult to describe, making for a strange and beguiling collection which is impossible to say no to.

Review: Zero 7's LateNightTales debut, Another Late Night, was first released in 2002, shortly after the electronica duo had been nominated for a Mercury Prize in light of their debut record Simple Things. The inevitable vaunting of their music reached its peak when one well-known pundit described their music as "the Sistine Chapels of music in a sea of affordable accommodation." Unlike their expertly crafted originals in the vein of trip-hop, downtempo and acid jazz, their LateNightTales album is of course a selectors' DJ compilation, which to this day incites its invitees (usually musicians as well as DJs) to select and remix tunes only as though they were sleepwalking through the dream fantasies made up by their own musical influences. Here, Zero 7 share various musical traumata, manifest and latent interpretations of songs, by the likes of The Cinematic Orchestra, Quasimoto, Jim O'Rourke, Serge Gainsbourg, Don Blackman, The Stylistics, Joy Zipper, Slum Village and Da Lata, all of which, as we can patently hear, fed into their relatively unpeggable, interwoven chillout sound.