Recently reissued via Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound, this 1980 platter is trippiest selection of the Creation Rebel catalog, expanding the lysergic limits of dub with whooshing backmasked tape effects. It’s also rumored to be the planned soundtrack of a Don Letts-directed film about ‘alien dreads from beyond the stars’…

Diamond Jubilee feels like a throwback to a different, weirder, cooler, better era in independent music. An era where a record such as this one — a record not available on streaming services, that can only be listened to on YouTube and via WAV files available for purchase on the artist’s website, and which was birthed into the world with no advanced single or press, that eschewed the long and laborious album rollout, and so felt like an artifact from space crash landed onto Earth — wasn’t so tragically uncommon.

Still House Plants filters torch blues through a cracked mirror, floating polysyllabic jazz singer melisma over clanging, clattering noise abstractions. It sounds like the most irregular sort of post-rock—U.S. Maple or Slint—with a Billie Holiday aficionado along for the ride, or perhaps like Circuit Des Yeux doing a guest shot with Black Midi. Let us stipulate right now that Still House Plants will not be to everyone’s taste, but you have to hear it. This is a band absolutely carving its own swath through music.

somesurprises began modestly, but with the band’s latest record, the excellent Perseids, they’ve moved into a positively widescreen space. It’s a dreamy sound, occasionally reminiscent of such legends as Stereolab, Grouper, Mazzy Star or Yo La Tengo. But it’s not just dreamy. Beneath the gorgeous drones and sweet motorik pop-rock, there are plenty of sharp edges, both sonically and lyrically.

On his second live release this year, Villa Maximus sends jazz pianist and synthesizer maven Greg Foat to Mykonos with his frequent collaborators guitarist Warren Hampshire of the Bees and drummer Ayo Salawu of Kokoroko. But the real wild card here is stellar Greek reedman Sokratis Votskos, who adds flute and bass clarinet to this already formidable unit. The thrilling results range from deep space ambient jazz exploration to funky krautrock blowouts.

Recorded over two sessions in the fall of 1962 at Nola Penthouse Studios in New York City, Night Lights finds Gerry Mulligan exploring the somber side of cool jazz, playing originals and standards with a no-frills approach.

It is perhaps at the peak of his unhinged behavior in the mid-70s that Martyn stumbled into his creative apex. Solid Air confirmed that the chops were there, but it was with One World that the artist cemented his potential for crafting masterworks that transcend the folk-singer moniker.

Rosali’s Merge debut Bite Down already has the makings of classic summer album. Bursting with singalong choruses, big barroom rave-ups and bleary confessions of both love and doubt, this is one that everyone can find a way into.