Album: Mobb Deep - Infinite

A solid tribute to a legendary history

Eight years after Prodigy’s untimely passing, Mobb Deep are gracing our sound systems once again with unreleased vocals and brand new music. With production from both Havoc, Mobb Deep’s second half, and world-renowned hip-hop powerhouse The Alchemist, Infinite brings back a strong boom-bap essence that fans have been missing, with zero missteps. The duo have been an integral part of New York hip-hop history since their 1995 single “Shook Ones Part II” cemented itself in the rap hall of fame.

Album: Boz Scaggs - Detour

★★★★ BOZ SCAGGS - DETOUR Smooth and soulful standards from an old pro  

Smooth and soulful standards from an old pro

Boz Scaggs rarely does a less than wonderful album. His latest is an exemplary collection of smooth and soulful standards and a few other choice items including a song he wrote for his first album Boz Scaggs (1969) “I’ll Be Long Gone” and an Allen Toussaint song that was a hit for Southern Soul diva Irma Thomas, “It’s Still Raining”.

Emily A. Sprague realises a Japanese dream on 'Cloud Time'

★★★ EMILY A. SPRAGUE - CLOUD TIME Live improvisations that drift in and out of real beauty

A set of live improvisations that drift in and out of real beauty

The history of experimental musicians from Europe and North America adopting Japanese aesthetics is … patchy. It got especially dodgy in the 1990s when every other electronica dork started flinging random kanji characters on their sleeves, writing soundtracks for imaginary Akira bike races and the like. And there are so, so many ambient producers who reference Zen gardens, minimalist interior design and bamboo flutes, you can’t go into a health spa without knocking over a pile of their CDs.

Trio Da Kali, Milton Court review - Mali masters make the ancient new

★★★ TRIO DA KALI, MILTON COURT Supreme musicians from Bamako in transcendent mood

Three supreme musicians from Bamako in transcendent mood

Trio Da Kali are griots, and their traditional role in West Africa is to connect: to evoke the glories of the past and to bring communities together through mediation and spiritual admonition. Their role, even though sung in Bambara, without surtitles – a thought worth considering – could not be more appropriate in a world so perilously divided.  

Hollie Cook's 'Shy Girl' isn't heavyweight but has a summery reggae lilt

★★★ HOLLIE COOK - 'SHY GIRL' Tropical-tinted downtempo pop that's likeable if uneventful

Tropical-tinted downtempo pop that's likeable if uneventful

Hollie Cook was in the final line-up of post-punk groundbreakers The Slits. When singer Ari Up died in 2010 and the group ended, there was a flurry of interest in Cook for a while. She supported The Stone Roses and appeared on Jools Holland’s Later.

theartsdesk Q&A: musician Warren Ellis recalls how jungle horror and healing broke him open

The Bad Seed explains the cost of home truths while making documentary Ellis Park

Warren Ellis is Nick Cave’s wild-maned Bad Seeds right-hand man and The Dirty Three’s frenzied violinist. Justin Kurzel’s Australian film subjects meanwhile exist on the malign edge, from Snowtown’s suburban serial killer and Nitram’s mass shooter to Ned Kelly.

Ellis is the contrastingly loving renegade subject of Kurzel’s debut documentary Ellis Park, an escapee from suburban Ballarat who here journeys further out to the titular Sumatran wildlife sanctuary he helps fund, where he plays to animals like a shaman Dolittle in jungle mist.

Pop Will Eat Itself's 'Delete Everything' is noisy but patchy

★★★ POP WILL EAT ITSELF - DELETE EVERYTHING Noisy but patchy

Despite unlovely production, the Eighties/Nineties unit retain rowdy ebullience

Pop Will Eat Itself deserve to be more celebrated. The Stourbridge outfit were one of the first 1980s bands to realise the potential of smashing punky indie-rockin’ into hip hop and electronic dance.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Earlies - These Were The Earlies

Lancashire and Texas unite to fashion a 2004 landmark of modern psychedelia

The reappearance of These Were The Earlies for its 21st-anniversary is a surprise. Although The Earlies' debut LP received a maximum-marks review from NME on its 2004 release – and widespread praise in general – it is not an album instantly shouting “cult item.” Nonetheless, as the reissue and a tie-in reformation of the band show, there is a residual affection.

Odd times and clunking lines in 'The Life of a Showgirl' for Taylor Swift

★★★ TAYLOR SWIFT - THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL Odd times and clunking lines

A record this weird should be more interesting, surely

It’s funny: people say a lot online that what you’re allowed to like and dislike in music is bounded by age, gender and so forth. “It’s not FOR you,” they say. And in many ways, when it comes to Taylor Swift, that’s fair enough.

Waylon Jennings' 'Songbird' raises this country great from the grave

★★★ WAYLON JENNINGS' 'SONGBIRD' Raises this country great from the grave

The first of a trove of posthumous recordings from the 1970s and early 1980s

This is quite a tale: Shooter, son of Waylon Jennings, discovers a tranche of his father’s personal multitrack tapes from the analogue years, dating between 1973 – when he wrestled artistic control from RCA – and 1984, when he had quit cocaine, joined The Outlaws and digital technology took over everything.