Back catalogue: Funk

Review: "Of all the many noble attempts of the prog rockers to create a grand compositional style which blended elements from classical music with rock, none, in my view, ever reached the intensity, complexity and raw savage excitement of the great Magma masterworks." When you make music that feels like the love child of a rock & roll musical, gospel choir, Frank Zappa and Ziggy Stardust, why should anyone expect you to be even remotely humble when describing your own back catalogue. Magma's 1974 epic is nothing short of batshit crazy in the true sense - bordering, perhaps sprinting well beyond, the point of genius and capable of rendering any room speechless. A stunning example of how wild, exploratory and experimental the music industry was once so proud to be.

Review: Studio album number 11 from legendary French outfit Magma, now reissued on 180g vinyl, marking a vital return to new composition after nearly three decades. Written by founder Christian Vander in the early 2000s and performed live for years before recording, the material fuses operatic vocals, rigid minimalism, and the band's signature invented language, Kobaian. 'Ekmah' and 'Teha' move like liturgical invocations, while the choral repetitions of 'Les Hommes Sont Venus' sound as if channelled from another realm entirely. Vander's drumming is restrained but authoritative, a quiet force guiding the momentum beneath 'Zahrr' and the ecstatic climax of 'Felicite Thosz'. There's a sense of ritualised propulsion throughout, as Magma treat rhythm not as groove but as mantra. It remains singular music: hermetic, alien, and undeniably spiritual - a rare return from a band that have always existed somewhere outside of time and genre.

Review: The Modulations released their album It's Rough Out Here in 1975, not only impressing both industry and laity with the singles 'Rough Out Here and 'I Can't Fight Your Love', but also spurring the considerable career of a funk quartet whose merit outdoes their reputation alone. The Modulations recorded extensively with MFSB, the house band of the famed record label Philadelphia International; these sessions yielded this album, one considered a gem of 1970s soul music. Exemplary of the long, wistful titles of the Philly funk era and beyond, the titular roughness of the record is also nonetheless embedded in a sea of audible Romance; the Modulations' hard knocks don't exclude the necessity of letting emotion in, with 'Head On Collision With Heartbreak' being an indelible example of this sense of being swept up in one's own emotions in the face of heartbreak, away from the perseverance aesthetics of "gritty" realism one might expect from a title like this.