Robert Wyatt - The End Of An Ear (Columbia - 1970)

Robert Wyatt - The End Of An Ear

iTunes is a strange software: Robert Wyatt's The End Of An Ear is classified as Alternative & Punk. Well, it maybe is not that far from the truth. Alternative certainly: The End Of An Ear is a psychedelic piece of experimental music (think Teddy Riley), influenced by pop, free jazz and world music. The End Of An Ear is not the kind of record you play to serve like a nice surounding to tea time. You must listen to it from the beginning to the end to really get into it. And if you do, you just get snatched. It is certainly a punk record too. In an era where music business was absorbing rock and afro-american seditious power, Robert Wyatt just did his thing with an arty "I don't give a fuck" attitude. On the back cover, you can even read "out of work pop singer". Brilliant.

Joe Hicks - Mighty Joe Hicks (Enterprise - 1973)/Jimmy Hughes - Something Special (Volt - 1969)

Joe Hicks, Jimmy Hughes - Something Special

Called Something Special, this 1993 bargain reedition gathers two excellent and during a long time ultra rare records released on Stax subsidiaries Enterprise and Volt by artists unfortunately staid confidential. The first one, Joe Hicks, produced and arranged hiw own and only album, Mighty Joe Hicks, the music and the voice deeply rooted in that form of bluesy soul only found below the Mason-Dixon line but melted with contemporary influences in the construction of the breaks. Jimmy Hughes album, Something Special, is bit less raw and benefited from the help of Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & The MG's and The Memphis Horn, the kind of help that had written deep soul masterpiece makers all over on it. And indeed they succeeded one more time. And for loop diggers, Jimmy Hughes last track, Did You Forget, properly sampled, cut and pitched, could do very well the trick.

Doris Monteiro e Miltinho - Doris, Miltinho e Charme (Odeon - 1970)

Doris Monteiro e Miltinho - Doris, Miltinho e Charme

I bought this one only for the cover, a brilliant work clearly inspired by surrealism. The album in itself isn't that good. Doris, Miltinho e Charme is a megamix of Brazilian bossa classics. Today you would call that a kind of record a mixtape. It's a kind of frustrating because each song switch to the next one after only one minute. This record is a little bit annoying, useless but curious exercice even if the voices are really nice and melt well together. Doris Monteiro made largely better albums.