Smithsonian Folkways US Schallplatten & CDs

Review: American experimental duo Matmos brings us their latest project Return To Archive. Matmos has been exploring various genres since they first came out some 30 years ago now and this album explores using sound in different and unique ways to create, almost like taking your favorite colours, throwing and seeing what sticks. There are echoes of DJ Shadow's Endtroducing, at least in its sample-based nature, if in a more experimental rather than urban flavours. Either way, the album it's brilliant in its own way.

Review: .How many albums do you think there are which have been influenced by the music of the late great jazz icon John Coltrane, either explicitly or implicitly? Well this is one to add to the list as, in 1975, Sarah Webster Fabio offered up a fourth and final album for Folkways in which her vivid musical language and distinctive voice are seamlessly interwoven with exploratory jazz sounds. Along the way she pays tribute to Coltrane as well as fellow Black jazz and blues musicians such as Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. The album is being reissued now as part of the label's 75th birthday celebrations and what a record it is to add to your shelves.