• Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service. A couple of weeks ago, A Tribe Called Quest put out a new record - an unexpected and very welcome surprise! They hadn't put anything out since 1998, and one of the core members had recently died, so there was no reason to expect anything more from them. But, it turns out they had been working on this album for a while when Phife died, so he's on most of the tracks. Posthumous (what a weird word - "after the soil") recordings of are always weird. Maybe it's that they can only use whatever audio they managed to get (no going back to re-do), so things are sometimes a little off from the rest of the track. Or maybe that when I hear his voice, I just can't stop thinking that he's no longer with us: morbid. And that Gene Wilder sample at the end of the first track compounds the vibe. Anyway, there's good stuff here. Q-Tip is always great. Busta Rhymes contributes some classic bluster. Jack Black riffs away in the background of a couple. Elton John samples? It's not about to bump Midnight Marauders off my List. But it's good to have.
• Rolling Stones - Blue & Lonesome. For the past few years, I've been listening to all the guys the Stones listened to: John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Albert King, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Buddy Guy, etc.. They're all incredible. We've all heard a million covers of their songs, and I've come to think that the originals are usually better in every way. So, why would I want to hear the Stones cover them?
• Gillian Welch - Boots No 1. The Official Revival Bootleg. Twenty one songs: outtakes, demos, alternate versions from their first record, Revival. I'm a completist, so I find this kind of thing interesting, but if I want to play some Gillian for other people, I'll probably pick the official release.
• Them - The Complete Them 1964-66 [v2.0 Revisisted by Prof. Stoned]. Prof. Stoned just put out this comprehensive collection of everything Them recorded - dozens and dozens of songs. I only knew the hits ('Gloria', etc), so this is a whole new world for me. Everyone knows Van Morrison's voice, but it turns out the rest of the band is great, too! It's also enlightening in other ways: Them, Beck. And Them, Beck.

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