Tags: European

Review: The latest must-cop record from the good people at Big Crown is a real summer special. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band serve up some seriously soul-enriching grooves, with the impossibly warm and good time vibes that come from steel drums on each and every one. The beats are rooted in funk, with fat bass and expressive horn work bring each one to life. There are sojourns into dub, disco and jazz, and the whole thing bris with so much character and personality that it cannot but put a smile on your face.

Review: Spanish reissue label Rocafort present this wonderful slice of highlife from Konkolo Orchestra, this time on nice blue wax as well as a plain black version. It's not exactly clear where, or indeed when, exactly the band came from, but their sound is all you need to worry about. 'Blue G' is a lilting, shuffling message of love and support for future generations, and from the message to the effervescent musicality, it's a no-brainer. On the flip, 'That Good Thing' is an instrumental that spirals outwards on the sweetest keys, joyous brass and dreamy guitar, driven by a pattering drum section to radiate good vibes wherever it's played.

Review: A decade of free-spirited jazz, soul, funk and all things in between, Parisian selectors Heavenly Sweetness bring together some of their favourite friends and most talented individuals for an all-out fusion session. Highlights include Anne Wirz's octave bending dulcets on "Mother Of The Future", the roaming trumpet and loose shuffle of Florian Pellissier Quintet's "Valse Pour Helene", Jacaranda Muse's barbed lament "September Sun" and the schoolyard sing-along hip-hop "Want It Back" from the hot-to-trot Guts. Here's to another 10 years...

Review: If Tibor Szemzo's name means nothing to you, clearly you've not been listening hard enough to the outer limits of music. The Hungarian polymath has founded impressive sonic art projects - Group 180, Fodderbasis, and Gordian Knot Cinematic Music Lab - and makes a habit of boldly going where very few artists dare to tread, calling on references from sub-Saharan Africa to opera and choral, classical and musique concrete to create a stylistic tapestry all of his own.

It's a patient world he paints, and a vivid one at that. Mesmerising instrumentation switches seamlessly between hypnotic and meditative and more melodic and immediacy accessible. At times Arbo X: Csoma Grooves feels like you've stepped into a Budapest jazz club. A second later, or thereabouts, you've stumbled into an ancient monastery, candlelight glancing off stone walls as night falls outside.

Review: Lebanese singer Pol Seif has linked with various European instrumentalists for this Molo Sayat project , which has its base camp around the Med. The band compose their material in Arabic, Italian and Romani languages and their first release on Zephyrus Records oozes a soul soothing calmness and plenty of colourful folk sounds. The musicianship is second to none as saxophone, clarinet, double bass and trumpets are all blended into one smooth and beautiful soundscape as Serf's voice adds another layer of magic. Whether jazzy and upbeat such as 'Kai Zhas Seka' or slow and mournful like 'Adame' these are all essential sounds.

Review: Belgian-Moroccan singer Aicha Haskal is at the heart of this fabulous project which sees her joining creative forces with super-talented musicians from the Belgian scene. Between them, the group has a mad diverse spread of backgrounds and influences which means their music too is broad in scope - psychedelic sounds and funky grooves, Arabic melodies and European rhythms all feature in this album as do rap and parlando. Egyptian poet Abdelhamid Farag penned their first single 'Ghalat' and now this album expands around that with music that fights the oppression of women and fights for revolution.