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Review of Africa Express Presents… Bahidorá

Africa Express Presents… Bahidorá

Africa Express

Top of the World

World Circuit Records

Rating: ★★★★★

Damon Albarn's Africa Express crossed the Atlantic to the Americas for the first time in 2024 to headline the Mexican...

Reviewed by Nigel Williamson in issue: September/2025

Review of Tuff Times Never Last

Tuff Times Never Last

Kokoroko

Brownswood Recordings

Rating: ★★★★

Seven-piece collective Kokoroko are one of a clutch of UK acts that channel the righteous grooves of Afrobeat into their...

Reviewed by Andrew Taylor-Dawson in issue: September/2025

Review of Ŋurru Wäŋa

Ŋurru Wäŋa

Hand To Earth | Hand to Earth

Room40

Rating: ★★★★

Originally developed during an Australian Art Orchestra residency in remote Tasmania, the Hand To Earth ensemble creatively established itself in...

Reviewed by Seth Jordan in issue: September/2025

Review of YO:song

YO:song

Lee Heemoon

Ewon Art Factory/Lee Heemoon Company

Rating: ★★★★★

The much-missed group SsingSsing was the vehicle that brought Lee Heemoon to international fame, a genre-blending, gender-bending kaleidoscopic take on...

Reviewed by Keith Howard in issue: September/2025

Review of Nishabourak

Nishabourak

Hamid Motebassem and George Crotty Trio

Link Music Lab Records

Rating: ★★★★

This collaborative album is born of a musical meeting at Toronto's Experimental Link Series event. The series focuses on celebrating...

Reviewed by Nathaniel Handy in issue: September/2025

Review of Horses

Horses

Tobacco City

Scissor Tail Records

Rating: ★★★

Country, and especially 70s country, is at the core of Tobacco City’s sound. The band, fronted by Lexi Goddard and...

Reviewed by Billy Rough in issue: October/2025

Review of MUTANT

MUTANT

Guedra Guedra

Smugglers Way

Rating: ★★★★

MUTANT is the perfect name for this shape-shifting album of bulbous beats by Moroccan producer Guedra Guedra (Abdellah M. Hassak)....

Reviewed by Rosie Esther Solomon in issue: October/2025

Review of Aura Reworks

Aura Reworks

Hatis Noit

Erased Tapes

Rating: ★★★

Aura, the 2022 debut album by Hokkaido-born, London-based singer Hatis Noit, was a triumph of highly technical abstract vocal work...

Reviewed by Fred Waine in issue: October/2025

Review of Audacity (Live)

Audacity (Live)

Shane Shanahan

Bright Shiny Things/Shane Shanahan

Rating: ★★★

Audacity (Live) offers a spirited world fusion akin to that of the Silk Road Ensemble, of whom percussionist Shanahan belongs....

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: October/2025

Review of Humanicity

Humanicity

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry & ERM

ERM

Rating: ★★

The Upsetter is back, and this time he's wearing a curly yellow clown's wig and sounding as if he's left...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: Apr/May/2013

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