Black Sweat Italy Vinilo y CD

Review: Ariel Kalma is a musical outsider, a visionary who combined a diverse world of sound into his own unique signature. Jazz, weird ethnic instrumentals, warm electronics, folk, spoken word and avant soul all feature in his compelling oeuvre and the visionary French musician sure had a large one. French Archives Vol III: 1964-1989 is another superb collection of material from it that comes in a lovely four LP box set with booklet and download code. It gets from astral wonderment on 'Space Pillars' to layers of harmonic bells, tropical flutes, harmoniums and drones of light on 'Muse Mirroir' with plenty in between.

Review: RECOMMENDED
It's not overtly clear whether or not Persona are trying to terrify us, send us down spiralling stairs of Escher-esque madness or simply explore new ideas in sound with Som. The Brazilian outfit barely managed to register with anyone but the most die-hard psyche rock fans of the 1970s, but our era of reappraisals, reissues and resurrections seems to be setting that record straight because when all is said and done they are very, very good indeed.

Don't expect a huge amount of tangibility to cling on to, though. These are the place where it's essential to let go of expectations around rhythm, structure and even sound. Opening with metronomic ticking and echoed vocals, tracks one and two are indistinguishable, and land us at the alien warbles and spatiality of 'Ceu', which is really the ending of the intro. From there, we have funk ('Terra'), tribal percussion ('Fogo') and trippy, alluring but edgy vocal solos ('Agua'), to name but a handful of styles.

Review: Lettera Cosmica by Riccardo Sinigaglia and musician and visual artist Mario De Leo was recorded back in 1981. It has never before been published and is the consolidation of an artistic and human partnership that aims to trace the four seasons in musical form. It has been made using analogue loops, prepared tapes featuring strings and piano, draws on lots of freaky time and pitch shifts and has been filtered with a Teac 3340 4-track recorder. The results seem at once ancient and ritualistic but also futuristic and occult. The volts are unique to the South of Italy and as they harmonise it is hard not to be left spellbound by this accessible yet experimental work. .