ARCHIVE

Lucinda Tait, Strummer’s widow, on the new compilation

JOE STRUMMER

LUCINDA GARLAND

A SSEMBLY is not the first Joe Strummer compilation of recent years – it follows the 32-track 2018 collection Joe Strummer 001. “There’s definitely a different idea with Assembly,” says Lucinda Tait, Strummer’s widow and executive producer of the set. “001 was conceived because we came across a lot of archival material [for] the die-hard fans. But Assembly is a collection of Joe’s betterknown songs, which have been remastered to celebrate this part of his career.”

Strummer’s post-Clash years didn’t strictly comprise a solo career. There was almost always a band, whether Latino Rockabilly War, The Pogues or The Mescaleros. “Joe was definitely a ‘band’ man,” says Tait. “He was a collaborative artist. The lyrics were his, but the musical influences came from everyone.”

Strummer would have been 70 next year. Assembly is a potent and melancholy reminder that he was nowhere near done. “He’d finished touring at the end of 2002,” says Tait, “and he had gone straight into Rockfield Studios. The plan was to get [2003’s] Streetcore out. He was writing manically. He wasn’t resting on his laurels at all.”

ANDREW MUELLER

FRANCISCO MORA CATLETT

Mora! &Mora!II 

FAR OUT RECORDINGS

9/10

Rare late-’80s pan-American sessions from a little-known African- American/Mexican drummer

The self-released debut LP by Francisco Mora Catlett – 1986’s Mora! – came after the Mexico City-raised drummer had spent seven years in Detroit as a member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. At a time when US jazz was in thrall to the neo-bop revival, Mora’s fusion of hard bop, samba jazz and pan-American world music sank without trace, and the (even more experimental) follow-up session wasn’t even released. But this belated two-disc package showcases a prescient project that foreshadows the 21st century’s more globally minded Fourth World jazz. On tracks such as “Samba De Amor” and “Amazona”, the clatter of rainforest sounds and tightly synchronised Brazilian hand drums mesh with ecstatic horns and the Flora Purim-like vocals of Francisco’s wife Teresa Mora; more ruminative tracks like the stately “El Moro” and “Cultural Warrior” give room for Mora’s crew of Detroit vets and teenage newcomers to shine.

Extras: None.

JOHN LEWIS

THE NIGHTINGALES

Pigs On Purpose (reissue, 1982)

CALL OF THE VOID

8/10

Brummisfits’ eccentric debut expanded to a (vinyl) double

This reissue follows the funny and affectionate King Rocker, a sort-of rockumentary about Robert Lloyd’s cultish flock, directed by Michael Cumming and written by Stewart Lee. The first (CD) reissue in 2004 expanded the original 13-song set with six additional tracks, but this remastered iteration pushes the total to a whopping 29. Pigs On Purpose is both of its time and slightly outside it: nervy, high-tensile guitars, furiously rolling drums and Lloyd’s flat vocal tone align it with post-punk but, at times, as on “Yeah, It’s OK”, it flips into a kind of proto-indie pop. More oddly, there’s the yawing, unaccompanied folk of “Well Done Underdog”, which Richard Dawson would surely applaud. Throughout, Lloyd’s eloquent lyrics hit their target with GPS-like precision.