Few people are onto great records as quickly as a great record store.
After years spent discovering gems in Phonica’s end of year lists, it made sense to give them a regular space on FACT. Every Saturday, staff from the Soho institution pick out the five vinyl records you should grab this week.
OMAR-S
‘I Wanna Know’
(FXHE Recordings)
Selected chiefly for its cover art, which you should xerox and plaster around town immediately, the latest from Detroit’s inimitable Omar-S is an especially soulful dose of scruffy, synthy deep house aided by vocalist James Garcia. Comes backed with an “extramental” (i.e. instrumental) mix.
THOR/SUCIU
‘Essential Thoughts’/’Cadru2’
(Double R)
The fifth release from The Double R, a label founded in 2013 by the founders of STABLO and Matt Edwards (aka Radio Slave), is a split 12″ pairing Thor’s deeper-than-deep Berlin atmospherics with Suciu’s refreshingly organic weirdness on the flip.
MATRIXXMAN
‘Nubian Metropolis’
(Dekmantel)
Shockingly bossy business from prolific San Francisco producer Matrixxman, who offers four tracks of increasingly addled, percussion-led dippiness which nod to the raw heat of early electro and acid.
JOYCE, NANA VASCONCELOS, MAURICIO MAESTRO
Visions of Dawn LP
(Far Out Recordings)
A welcome reissue of this previously lost album of Brazilian acid-folk, rescued and released by Joe Davis’ Far Out Recordings. The work of jazz singer and guitarist Joyce, percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and bassist, guitarist and singer Mauricio Maestro, Visions of Dawn is as tender and dreamy as its title suggests.
THE MAGHREBAN
‘Green Apple’
(No Label)
Following his whacked-out EP on Versatile last year, The Maghreban delivers a one-sided tribute to the headrushes of yore on the pirate radio inspired ‘Green Apple’.
