Various ★★★★

Fire Draw Near

RIVER LEA. CD/DL

Lankum man trawls archives for An Anthology Of Irish Traditional Song And Music.

He’s often branded as an unreconstituted ex-punk in folk circles, but Ian Lynch’s traditional credentials run deep, from a masters degree in Irish folklore to lectures at University College and regular podcasts. There’s no shortage of archive material available courtesy of the sainted Reg Hall, but it’s 23 years since Topic’s landmark Voice Of The People series and Lynch’s profile with Lankum – and his passion for the subject – ought to fire new imaginations. With rare recordings from the last 70 years, it captures the informality and relaxed joy of music made in its natural habitat. Nora Cleary giggles as she sings The Codfish, Grace Toland’s beautiful singing of Flora comes with a hubbub of background conversation and Joe Heaney has a bit of a chat before singing Amhrán Na Heascainne. All this and perhaps the greatest piper of all, Johnny Doran. A gem.

Colin Irwin

The Black Keys ★★★★

El Camino [Deluxe Edition]

NONESUCH. CD/DL/LP

Commercially chiselled seventh LP, plus grittier live/session extras.

Dan Auerbach isn’t overly fond of this Danger Mouse-drilled album that broke The Black Keys in the US: he prefers things greasy, à la this year’s Delta Kream. Also, El Camino’s global outreach almost consumed him. The record itself, however, feels positively filthy by today’s pop standards, and 10 years on, most classic rock aficionados would take guitarpowered earworms like Lonely Boy and Gold On The Ceiling in a heartbeat. This deluxe version adds a 20-track live blitzkrieg from Portland, Maine in March 2012, at the start of the arena trajectory that eroded Auerbach’s soul – yet is still a textbook document of a fabulously exciting, peaking band. Even better, an 11-song live-withaudience BBC session, plus a further nine live-in-studio entries from LA’s Electro-Vox facility, bottle that energy with more kinetic frisson, bringing El Camino’s crossover bangers into alignment with Fat Possum-era garage blasts such as Your Touch.

Andrew Perry

The Jazz Butcher ★★★★

Dr Cholmondley Repents: A-sides, B-sides And Seasides

FIRE. CD/ DL

A beautiful elegy in the wake of Pat Fish’s untimely death in October.

From the outset, The Jazz Butcher viewed singles as separate entities, a place where Pat Fish’s most oddball impulses could coexist with his innate melodic sense.

First single and its flip, Southern Mark Smith and Jazz Butcher Meets Count Dracula, are perfect examples: the first inspired by a forgotten pub joke about Blue Aeroplanes’

Gerard Langley; the second from a dream Fish had about watching Dracula on TV with the Count himself. Musical allies, meanwhile, include Jonathan Richman – they do a great Roadrunner – and Robert Wyatt, who said, “Anyone can make avant-garde records but it takes a genius to write a pop song.” As The Jazz Butcher, Pat Fish combined both, as this wonderful box of singles, flip sides and more attests.

Lois Wilson

Vis-A-Vis ★★★★

Best Of Vis-A-Vis In Congo Style

WE ARE BUSY BODIES. DL/LP

Ghanaians’ 1976 LP. Also out: 1977’s Di Wo Ho Ni.

Vis-A-Vis’s vision was bold, and over 13 albums in their 1975-82 lifespan they took highlife in new directions, fusing it with Congolese rumba to thrilling effect on this, their third LP. By this time, rumba based on the Hispanic style of son cubano was dominating the African dancehalls; its rhythms were infectious, and the album sparks with a street energy and the promise of change via dancefloor communion. Key tracks: Medofo Pa and Cherie Bondowe, the latter an exultant reading of the Congolese guitarist/singer songwriter Freddy Mayaula Mayoni’s hit from the previous year; the former, percussive cross rhythms with Isaac Yeboah’s soulful voice and the guitar of Sammy Red Cropper.