The Invisible Deal

Worth a buy on the strength of the rather fetching Czech new wave/pulp fiction-inspired cover alone, which is a typically eye-catching design by Ghost Box’s resident visual genius, Julian House. The music on Beautify Junkyards’ third album offers instant gratification too, as the Lisbon collective strike up a woozy amalgam of esoteric English psych-folk and Brazilian tropicalia. There’s also tinges, of kosmische and an underlying hauntological vibe (this is Ghost Box, remember) adding an eerie, dystopian edge. It’s splendid stuff, but then you’d expect nothing less from a band whose beatific cover versions of Kraftwerk’s ‘Radioactivity’ and Nick Drakes’ ‘From The Morning’ were as dizzyingly good as the originals. And as with their first two LPs, there’s much to love here — standouts include the swirling ‘Sybil’s Dream’, channelling Broadcast’s wistful retro-futurism, and the transcendental Os Mutantes-like ‘Manhã Tropical’. Anything but invisible, it’s a bewitching album that you’ll warm to immediately.

Renowned as a record producer and soundtracks guru, T Bone Burnett has been prolific in just about every way, except when it comes to his own albums. But the drought in his own discography is about to end. On April 12, he’ll release his first album of new studio songs in 11 years, “The Invisible Light: Acoustic Space,” on the Verve Forecast label.

The expanded 20th anniversary edition of the Breeders' breakthrough affirms its status as an alt-rock classic. The set includes a 1994 live show and a disc of rarities and demos that put the finished product in context. Meanwhile, the EPs from the period show off the wide stylistic range of everything the Breeders could do well.

In early 1973, thanks to the intrepid persuasion of jazz producer Ed Michel, Sun Ra signed a licensing agreement with the prestigious jazz imprint Impulse (then part of ABC/Paramount Records) to reissue catalog titles from Ra's proprietary Saturn label, as well as some new Arkestra recordings. Michel had produced Ra's most commercially successful album, Space is the Place, in 1972 for Blue Thumb Records, and he figured Ra was finally primed for a wider Earthly audience. The Impulse deal struck with Ra and manager Alton Abraham specified a cap of 50 albums — ten annually for five years — although all masters were subject to approval by Impulse and theoretically less than 50 could be issued.