Album: Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes - What Kinda Music

★★★★ TOM MISCH & YUSSEF DAYES - WHAT KINDA MUSIC Feel-good hormones on Blue Note

South-east Londoners provide the feel-good hormones on Blue Note collab

We can all do with a dopamine hit right now, given the current lockdown, and those feel-good hormones kick in the instant you hear Yussef Dayes’ tight backbeat on the opening title track of What Kinda Music. A collaboration between drummer and producer Dayes and fellow south-east London-based producer and singer-songwriter Tom Misch – whose "Disco Yes" was one of Barack Obama’s favourite tracks of 2018 – the album is released today via the iconic Blue Note Records.

theartsdesk on Vinyl Lockdown Special 1: Napalm Death, Brazilian jazz-pop, 1980s indie and more

THEARTSDESK ON VINYL LOCKDOWN SPECIAL 1 Stay-at-home music for stay-at-home times

Stay-at-home music for stay-at-home times: the first of our twice-weekly vinyl specials

For the duration of this C19 Lockdown, rather than the usual sprawling monthly epic, theartsdesk on Vinyl will be presented regularly in bite-sized editions, roving across the pile of releases we have already, since those incoming have been whittled down a trickle. Welcome, then, to a cross edition of plastic ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre. Dive in!

Napalm Death Logic Ravaged by Brute Force/White Kross (Century Media)

Album: Pokey LaFarge - Rock Bottom Rhapsody

★★★★ POKEY LAFARGE - ROCK BOTTOM RHAPSODY The rocky road to redemption

The rocky road to redemption

Talk about a great big melting pot! The eighth studio album by the man born 36 ago as Andrew Heissler in Bloomington, Indiana, and known to the world as Pokey LaFarge digs deep into the bubbling cauldron of Americana, in its very broadest sense.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Island: Where Legends Were Born, BBC Four review - remembering rock's big bang

★★★★ ROCK 'N' ROLL ISLAND: WHERE LEGENDS WERE BORN, BBC FOUR A big bang remembered

Eel Pie Island was London's answer to the Cavern, but what emerged was less genteel

“Friday night is Amami night” – that was the ad that ran from the 1920s through to the 1950s for a brand of “setting lotion”, a delightfully old-fashioned term. Those were the days when young women stayed home and did their hair, in preparation for a Saturday night out. Perhaps some of the girls (they weren’t yet “chicks”, maybe “birds”) in the late 1950s used the product when they went to Eel Pie Island, one of the country’s legendary music scenes.

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, BBC iPlayer - an intimate, insider's account of his life and music

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson puts a wealth of rare and unseen footage to good use

Miles – where to begin? Some 21st century revisionists find his art fatally tainted by his personal life, and his violent behaviour in relationships. His rasping, epithet-scarred voice, the sound of a snake sloughing off its own skin, able to weaponise ‘motherfucker’ to some kind of deadly bio-mass, his long rich history of drug use and abuse, his vivid, aggressive take on race relations and his studied indifference to his audience – this is not how musicians and artists are supposed to behave, especially nowadays.

Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All, Netflix review - epic two-parter on pop's first superstar

SINATRA: ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL, NETFLIX Epic two-parter on pop's first superstar

Built around a 1971 farewell concert, Alex Gibney's documentary makes richly engaging viewing

Coming in at around four hours, in two parts, this 2015 documentary is ostensibly about Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, but really, via the prism of his existence, it’s as much about America’s journey through the first two thirds of the 20th century.

Album: Shabaka & the Ancestors - We are Sent Here by History

★★★★★ SHAMBAKA & THE ANCESTORS - WE ARE SENT HERE BY HISTORY Struggle and aspiration from the Londoner's South African ensemble

Spiritual and political struggle and aspiration from the Londoner's South African ensemble

Londoner Shabaka Hutchings's other main groups, The Comet Is Coming and Sons Of Kemet, are pretty modernist. They incorporate dub, post-rock, post punk and rhythm patterns that recall London pirate radio sounds into the playing of his ensembles, with thrillingly adrenalised and / or cosmic results.

Max Raabe, Palast-Orchester, Cadogan Hall review - escapism with irony

★★★★ MAX RAABE, PALAST-ORCHESTER, CADOGAN HALL Escapism with irony

The German singer has a fine and versatile band

Escapism sometimes feels not just useful but necessary. To be carried back, for an evening, to the world of the 1920s/1930s dance band, with foxtrots, pasodobles, crisp starched collars and secco endings, of slick hair and even slicker arrangements, does have a lot to recommend it. And a virtually packed house in Cadogan Hall last night were palpably more than happy to be taken there.