Back catalogue: Clásico/Ska

Review: You might well have caught Rhoda Dakar's wonderful run of cover versions popping up on singles from Sunday Best over recent times. Now the time has come to gather them together with some additional treats and present a fully-fledged album. Version Girl is pure feel good energy, even when Dakar takes on The Smiths' 'Everyday Is Like Sunday'. From Bowie's 'The Man Who Sold The World' to Reed's 'Hangin' 'Round', Dakar has chosen tracks which don't already have reggae versions, bringing something fresh to the table with the insight of a true music lover.

Review: Desmond Dekker recorded some of his best known songs together with his backing group the Aces. Their single '007 (Shanty Town)' made him Jamaican music's first outernational superstar, reaching the 14th place in the UK charts. The Leslie Kong-produced Double Dekker was first issued in 1973 and consists of the best material Desmond recorded during his early years. In 1969 he scored a number-one hit with the legendary song Israelites. You'll hear how the Ska music from the mid-60s developed to the Rocksteady sound. This was 'Ska' or 'Blue Beat' - (or its new name for the slower tempo rocksteady) - and the lyrics come from the Calypso-Mento method of telling about current events in music. He was really at his prime from 1969 to 1971 and recorded classics such as 'It Mek' (1969) and 'You Can Get It If You Really Want' (1970), which you'll both find on this record. Even before Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff Jamaica already had their own international superstar, Desmond Dekker was his name.

Review: Shanty Town was the debut album by the legends in the making of the reggae world that are Desmond Dekker and his Aces aka Wilson James and Easton Barrington Howard. It of course induces the title track which was the first to make them stars on the international stage and even managed to hit the heady heights of #14 on the UK charts. It's an album that shows how ska from the mid-60s had an influence on the rocksteady sound and as well as the 'Spanky Town' classic you'll hear gems like 'Israelites' from 1968 and 'It Miek' from 1969.

Review: Back in the mid-to-late noughties, musical polymath Bruno Hovart (Patchworks, Voilaaa, Mr President, Uptown Funk Empire etc) helmed a revivalist dub reggae band famed for delivering dusty cover versions of soul, pop and rock hits. Hovart is a dab hand at making anything he touches sound scarily authentic, and much of Version Excursions, the band's now reissued debut album, sounds like proper Jamaican rocksteady, roots and ska of the 1970s. It's a simple idea, brilliantly executed, with highlights including their covers of 'Seven Nation Army', the Rolling Stones' 'Miss You' (reimagined as a toaster-sporting disco-reggae jam), and Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love'.