The Bateleurs The Sun In The Tenth House (2022)

Harking back to the days of homemade mixtapes, BBC's television program Top Gear released its own version of a road-trip album in a two-disc, 38-song compilation they call The Ultimate Driving Experience. According to the label, Family Recordings, the first disc is a selection of "recent" hits (though if the Stone Roses song "Love Spreads" from their 1994 album, Second Coming, really qualifies as recent is debatable), while the second focuses more on atmosphere (aka electronica, techno, and house music). What this basically means is that there is a disc for day and then one for night, though, perhaps because of the incessant rain in Britain and the lack of sun in the winter months, there are some songs on the first that seem to better apply to low-light situations (DJ Shadow's "You Can't Go Home Again," UNKLE's "Panic Attack," and Snow Patrol's "Run," for example).

3 CDs packed with the greatest women Blues singers of all time performing some of their best known songs. They are all here, including, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, Billie Holiday, Etta James - and many more.

US-based, Grammy-nominated Rwandan and Ugandan singer-songwriter Somi’s Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba lovingly celebrates the musical contributions of the late "first lady of African song." With intergenerational contributions by Seun Kuti, Thandiswa Mazwai, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Nduduzo Makhathini, and Angelique Kidjo, a pan-Africanist thread runs through this 17-track commemoration, released on what would have been Makeba’s 90th birthday. Articulating Makeba’s sonic vocabulary, Somi distils messages of womanhood, homecoming, social justice, and political strife while employing and re-imagining several idioms. Scouring Makeba’s catalogue, South African jazz of yesteryear coalesces with contemporary contexts to both memorialize and reinvigorate. The sanguine keys of the Gregory Porter-assisted “Love Tastes Like Strawberries” meet the arresting vocal performances of both Somi and folk artist Msaki on “Khuluma”. It’s the electronically-tinged rework of “Pata Pata” that best encapsulates Somi’s aims by crafting melodies with darker hues to explore Makeba’s ethos more broadly.