Mark Allen

After 18 months of 12" releases that completely blew our minds, Honest Jons finally compile their amazing lineup of Tony Allen remixes for this one mighty package. Reworkings from Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Mauritz Von Oswald head the lineup, with Mauritz delivering a Ten and a half minute basic channel classic, a mighty Steppers version that unfolds in textbook Rhythm & Sound style, using the deepest tools imaginable within that impossibly spacious, fuzzed-out environment that only Basic Channel ever seem to produce so effortlessly. Carl Craig, meanwhile, utilises all the dancefloor savvy and careful vocal manipulations marked out on his finest and most sought after remixes of the last few years, delivering a fierce drum edit as good as his classic remix for The Congos a few years back. We have a mighty soft spot for the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble reworking that's also featured here, we've been spinning it more or less endlessly since it was first released and everyone we play it to begs us for a copy.

Where a slow-burning, word of mouth campaign was hugely beneficial to Jon Allen – his debut album, 2009’s Dead Man’s Suit, was given a sizeable leg-up by one track’s use in a Land Rover campaign, while champions included Jo Whiley, Jools Holland and Emmylou Harris – second album Sweet Defeat not only has the task of matching this, but is also burdened with the albatross of assumed instant impact. But it seems as though that’s the last thing Allen is worried about. While his passport may substantiate the on-paper Britishness of this Hampshire-born artist, his yarns and philosophies paint a picture of a grizzled American folk musician, decades of abandon behind him. Sweet Defeat, in this vein, employs good honest rock'n'roll ideals, actioned via a collection of simple, folksy melodies.

Allen's a decent though hardly extraordinary mainstream drummer who here leads an all-star neo-bop contingent in a set of standards and originals. Nothing surprising about the general conservatism of the date, given the personnel – Vincent Herring on alto sax, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, and Cyrus Chestnut on organ, to name a few. There's also nothing in particular wrong with the music, which is heartily played and deeply felt. Nothing, that is, except for the fact that it's covering ground that's been pretty much trampled into dust. It's a pleasant-enough listen, however, and since Cannonball Adderley isn't around to make albums like this anymore, maybe it's a good thing that musicians like these are. On the other hand, as long as guys like Johnny Griffin, Joe Henderson, and Phil Woods still walk the planet, the need is somewhat diminished.

In 2002, Mark Lanegan was looking to make some changes in how he approached his music – the Screaming Trees had finally collapsed at the end of the '90s, he'd found a new fan base as a frequent guest vocalist with Queens of the Stone Age, and the spare, blues-leaning solo efforts Lanegan cut for Sub Pop were no longer side projects but the first chapters of a new career. As Lanegan was strategizing his next move, he went to Houston, Texas and in five days recorded a dozen songs with a handful of talented local musicians, including guitarist Ian Moore and longtime Willie Nelson sideman Mickey Raphael on harmonica, with Justice Records founder Randall Jamail as producer. While the sessions were meant to be demos for a stack of songs Lanegan had written for Jamail's publishing house, the finished product sounded good enough to be an album, and in 2015 Lanegan finally released the material under the title Houston: Publishing Demos 2002. The jolly irony is that while these are supposed to be demos, in many respects the performances sound more polished and "commercial" than most of Lanegan's early solo efforts, capturing a laid-back but buoyant mood that's informed by country and blues as much as rock, and Lanegan seems comfortable singing with the group, rather than simply laying his vocals over the top.

On the first album they’ve released together since they were partners in The Jayhawks in 1995, singer/songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris reconvene for a recording that's unlikely to disappoint fans of their old band. But while they mine a thoughtful country-folk vein that’s not far removed from Jayhawks territory, Olson and Louris take a somewhat softer, more acoustic-based, balladic approach here than they did in the Jayhawks days, lending Ready for the Flood a warm, honeyed glow.