The Turkish psych folk band Baba Zula are at their very best live: the essence of their appeal depends on slow-burning climbs towards an ever-elusive climax, perfectly honed for a crowd that wishes to dance their minds away.

"The gateway to the invisible must be visible." So intones Patti Smith on the third and final journey in sound with Stephan Crasneanscki and Simone Merli, AKA Soundwalk Collective, musical psychogeographers and field recorders whose journey for this evocation of French spiritual-surrealist writer Rene Daumal’s posthumous 1952 cult classic Mount Analog took him to the peak of Nanda Devi in the Himalayas, the former Beatle hangout of Rishikesh, India’s "spiritual capital" of Varanasi,

After 2016’s A Shot in the Light, DJ, producer and Disco Halal labelrunner Chen Moscovici has leaned full-tilt into synth-pop and, with Time Slips Away, has created a collection that’s both carefully placed and cleverly paced.

Lockdown’s easing and the record shops are opening here and there. So, to help vinyl junkies on their way, here’s 7000 words of reviews, capturing the best of the last couple of months’ releases on plastic. As ever, the sounds go everywhere, from hip hop to post-punk to Moroccan trance music. Dive in!

VINYL OF THE MONTH

There’s a moment halfway through Khruangbin’s latest album that succinctly sums up the melting-pot model this band have made their own. It’s “Pelota”, a Spanish-influenced song, based on a Japanese film, played by a Texan three-piece with a Thai name. It’s also very, very good indeed.

Ghana was visited by two British musicians in the early Eighties. One was Mick Fleetwood, who recorded the Visitor album in Accra during January and February 1981. The other was Brian Eno, who came to the country in late 1980 to attend the National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC). While in Ghana, he also produced The Pace Setters, the first and only album by local band Edikanfo.

Bab L’Bluz are a Franco-Moroccan band, They’re the latest in a succession of musicians - going back to the pioneers Nass El Ghiwane, and the recently departed Rachid Taha - to have created a vibrant fusion of traditional sounds from the Maghreb with the energy of rock.

Outside his home country Madagascar, Damily was first heard via a couple of tracks on the 2004 French compilation album Tsapiky, Panorama D'une Jeune Musique De Tulear, an overview of the tsapiky dance music of the south-west of the island. He’d moved to France in 2003. His first internationally issued full-length album, Ravinahitsy, followed in 2007. Since then, there’s been three more albums: the last of which was 2018’s Valimbilo.

What times. They cancelled Glastonbury. Festival season 2020 disappeared. Then certain potions and compounds associated with festivaling ran dry. Well, the latter exist, of course. There’s a fellow over the road who’s still selling talcum powder and stinking chemo-skunk from his porch.

Welcome to the second of our lockdown specials. It’s a small but vital dip into what’s new on plastic. Other than that, theartsdesk on Vinyl wishes you well in these strange times. Stay at home, play records, turn up the volume.

Various Cadence Revolution 1973-1981: Disques International Vol. 2 (Strut)