August 2026
Five records the editors listened to with their eyes closed. No rankings, no algorithms. Just ears.
-
01Karma
Pharoah Sanders · 1969picked by Mike G.
It takes thirty-three minutes and not one less: Karma is a single piece that takes all the time it needs. I put it on when I need a room to change temperature — Pharoah Sanders's tenor moving from a caress to a scream, and Leon Thomas's voice breaking, at a certain point, into that yodel that sounds like nothing else on earth. This isn't background music and it isn't easy music: it's a half-hour prayer. Keep an eye on number 05 below — it's no accident that I picked it too.
-
02Ys
Il Balletto di Bronzo · 1972picked by Sergio
Let me be upfront: Ys is not a record you love on first listen, and anyone selling it as an instant classic is lying to you. In 1972 Il Balletto di Bronzo made one of the darkest, densest records in all of Italian prog — Gianni Leone's keyboards looming over everything, an end-of-the-world mood that never lets up. The first time, it bounced right off me; the fourth time, I got lost inside it, and that's when it clicked. Take my word for it: this is a record to be courted, not consumed.
-
03Just Another Diamond Day
Vashti Bunyan · 1970picked by Emma
This is the one I save for mornings when I want the world to slow down. Vashti Bunyan recorded it in 1970 after travelling by horse and cart to the Hebrides, and you can hear it: small, whispered songs, with Robert Kirby's strings and Joe Boyd's production holding them the way you'd cup a bird in your hands. Nobody bought it at the time and she vanished for thirty years; now the original Philips copies are worth a fortune. It's the kind of record crate digging exists for — hunting it down is part of loving it.
-
04Tago Mago
Can · 1971picked by John
Tago Mago is two records, and they're two different animals. The first is hypnotic groove — 'Halleluhwah' turning over for eighteen minutes and pulling you under, Damo Suzuki muttering, Jaki Liebezeit a drum machine made of flesh. The second is where Can drop you in the dark: noise, tape, musique concrète, the kind of thing that has you reaching for the tonearm the first time. Don't lift it — that's exactly where the album lives, in the nerve to not be pleasant. In 1971, no less.
-
05Source
Nubya Garcia · 2020picked by Mike G.
I'll close with a record only five years old, and I'm doing it on purpose. Nubya Garcia's Source is spiritual jazz for 2020 — London instead of New York, dub and cumbia inside the tenor — but it's the same thread as the Karma I opened with: the same idea that a saxophone can take you somewhere, not just entertain you. Fifty years between the two records, and the same name signing off down here: yes, I chose both, and I wanted you to hear them back to back. Play one after the other and feel how little has changed about what matters.
Groov-illa participates in the Amazon, eBay Partner Network and CDandLP affiliate programmes, among others. Purchasing through our links may earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you.
← All editions