The Birds

'A Guide to the Birdsong of South America' is a non-profit, crowd-funded album of music inspired by birdsong. Featuring some of the continent's most talented young musicians and producers, each artist used the recorded song of an endangered species from their country and created an original track. The album aims to raise awareness about the plight of these birds and also to raise funds for those working to protect them. All proceeds will be donated to a pair of Ecuadorian NGO birding charities, which will include paying the salary of chief ranger of the Tapichalaca reserve, home to the Jocotoco Antpitta, Franco Mendoza.

Three CD box containing a bespoke mod-friendly mix of 1960s musical styles commencing with tough British R&B from The Pretty Things and The Graham Bond Organization, taking in key tracks by mod heroes Small Faces, The Creation and The Action, freakbeat from The Syn, soul from Mike Wade and Jon And Jeannie and ending with a jazzy Hammond workout by The Spencer Davis Group. A long awaited follow up to previous mod inspired Strawberry label compilations 'Halcyon Days' (2020) and 'I Love To See You Strut' (2022) plus the RPM collections 'Looking Back' (2011), 'Keep Looking' (2014) and 'Night Comes Down' (2017). Familiar names such as Laurel Aitken and The Moody Blues are joined by cult favourites including The Artwoods (featuring future Deep Purple organist Jon Lord) and John's Children.

The Beatles Lost Album is a massive meat of a monster, what is known in some circles as a music box set, 6 CD's worth. The liner notes state this was "born from the idea of gathering for the first time all the Beatles unreleased compositions, performed by themselves, as well as cover versions that were not included in any official album. Many of these tracks come from demos, home recordings, rehearsals, etc, so the original quality is low. In this album we try to improve the audio quality as much as possible, recovering audio drops, fixing technical problems, recording failures and so on."

It is impossible to appreciate Ron Wood's music and muscianship to the fullest without the context of the original albums. Buying every single album Ron Wood has ever been part of, however, is obviously not cost effective for the casual fan. So the compilation "albums" are the next best thing. Every music fan needs to have a little Woodie in their collection. That being said, "Essential Crossexion" is arguably the best Ron Wood compilation available; & a great place to start a Ron Wood collection for someone on a budget. The track selection here is phenomenal. The songs span from his early career as a bassist with Jeff Beck to guitarist & Keith's foil in the Stones.

Sharing social circles and spiritual ideologies with artists such as Iasos, Connie Demby and Deuter, whilst splitting label release schedules with Laraaji, Laurie Spiegel and Wendy Carlos, the unique Florida raised soul mate duo known as Emerald Web released their privately pressed debut LP at an axis where post-prog rock met proto-new age and ambient electronic music.

A Hand Through the Cellar Door is, in many ways, Temple's most straightforward collection of song-storying tunes to date. There are tales of dysfunctional, broken homes and of dysfunctional, broken people. "Birds of Late December," with its fluttering, nimble fingerpicking, paints an exacting but impressionistic portrait of divorce through the eyes of an exceptionally wistful child. In both "Maryanne Was Quiet" and "The Case of Louis Warren" we follow two characters whose lives unravel in very different ways, though their central question is the same: After you shed all the things you think make you who you are, what is left? Temple is creating small, confident stories with a massive scope.

inley Quaye emerged on the U.K. music scene in the mid-'90s, delivering a unique amalgam of pop, trip-hop, soul, and jazz with his critically acclaimed 1997 debut, Maverick a Strike. His first appearance on record came in 1995, providing vocals for "Finleys Rainbow," a track from A Guy Called Gerald's seminal breakbeat album Black Secret Technology. He recorded and co-produced Maverick a Strike, working in Sheffield with Kevin Bacon from the Comsat Angels. The album earned critical and commercial success worldwide, and also gained him a BRIT Award for Best Male Solo Artist. Quaye delivered two more LPs for Epic in 2000's Vanguard and 2004's Much More Than Much Love, the latter of which featured a collaborative single with Beth Orton and William Orbit called "Dice" that became a minor hit. Although it would be another eight years before he delivered a follow-up album, 2008 saw the release of both a new EP, Pound for Pound, and a greatest-hits package, The Best of the Epic Years. A release on the French label Sakifo titled 28th February Road arrived in 2012, followed two years later by a reggae LP called Royal Rasses, which saw Quaye working with Norman Grant of long-tenured Jamaican act the Twinkle Brothers. An album of demos, appropriately titled Demos, was released in the spring of 2016, followed in 2017 by a pair of digital-only concert recordings, Live in Geneva and Live in Jerusalem.

Canadian folk band the Deep Dark Woods embraces gothic surrealism on its latest album, Yarrow, diving headlong into a particularly bleak strain of storytelling. Across the album's nine tracks, frontman Ryan Boldt conjures visions of loss and woe, sometimes in contradiction to the Byrds-esque melodies and instrumental interplay that punctuate the songs.