Another instant classic from the Dust-to-Digital label, Baby, How Can It Be? neatly arranges three discs of old-time country-blues and hot jazz into romantically themed segments: love, lust and contempt. And lemme tellya -- these cats and kittens in the ’20s and ’30s were anything but polite! Featuring liner-notes from Nick Tosches and illustration by Robert Crumb, this package spans a broad range of sweetness and vile, sour hatred. All selected from the 78s of John Heneghan (a famed collector who lives in NYC), these tunes sound great -- some hiss and crackle, sure, but also jarring clarity, like on (ahem) “Let Me Play with It” by Hartman’s Heart Breakers. If a double-entendre is too complex for you, how about the ditty from Harry Roy and His Bat Club Boys called simply “Pussy”? (You’d think they might’ve given their bands racier names, eh?) Disc three is the killer -- literally -- with some not-ready- for-radio sentiments such as “It’s a Shame to Whip Your Wife on Sunday” and “I Used to Call Her Baby.” The Broadway Bell-Hops say it best though: “Wimmin -- Aah!” (M.L. Thrope)

What can we say? What can anyone say about Kanye West in 2010? For one thing, the dude himself says so freakin’ much -- about himself! Like, where are we supposed to get a word in edgewise? The truth of the matter is that I think Kanye is one of the best pop stars America’s ever had -- best as in, he’s almost completely insane and knows it; and he delivers on exactly what we ask of our pop stars, namely to reflect some aspect of ourselves, our aspirations and doubts and dreams, writ large (real large in this case). And yeah, he’s really that good. He backs it all up. He can hardly rap but nonetheless does it brilliantly, and he writes rhymes that are just too good, too good. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is maximal in just about every way, a full-bore blast of melody, tension, beats and rhymes that always seem better than they should be. There’s no doubt that if you’re reading this, you have some opinion of Kanye already, informed by his stupid-ass antics, awesomely crazy proclamations and over-coverage in the media. Try putting all that aside and sitting with the music a bit, and see how you feel about just that, just the music. Cause I have no interest in the hype and noise...but I love his music. I love the tormented genius that’s inside My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He’s the enormous, difficult, unbearable, rewarding pop star that this country deserves. Check out the tracks below and see what you think. (M.L. Thrope)

Man, is Rune Grammofon on a hot streak. While I’m still raving about Motorpsycho to nearly every customer who walks in the door, along comes another great Norwegian freakout album, this one from Ultralyd. This quartet was formed in 2004, consisting of Kjetil Møster (reeds), Anders Hana (guitars), Kjetil Brandsdal (bass) and Morten J. Olsen (drums), and they are one tight unit, delivering an exhilarating album that straddles prog, metal and free jazz. What makes the all-instrumental Inertiadrome unique is that it is practically free of solos; the music is driven by its thunderous rhythm section, and the interplay between Brandsdal and Olsen is something to behold. Ultralyd’s members cut their teeth in Norway’s stellar jazz scene, and they apply the rigors and discipline of jazz to the brutal, fiery sonics of metal, combining their nation’s estimable traditions to produce a fresh and exciting record. (James)

Another month, another compilation of cool ’60s/’70s African music. Yawn... HEY!!! Do not sleep on this one! Analog Africa, one of a few unimpeachably fantastic labels dedicated to such pursuits, brings forth one of its finest collections yet -- not a film soundtrack but rather a bewitching and varied set of Angolan sounds, and you will have trouble taking this record off. Lots of cool, modified Western electric-guitar styles to be found, like the surf bliss of “Ilha Vergem” by Jovens Do Prenda and the quasi-psych semba of Os Kiezos’ “Comboio,” but unlike a lot of ostensibly great similar comps, you get a real sense over the course of these 18 tracks of just how unique things were in Angola during this period, and a real sonic portrait of Cuban/Latin influences blended with Angolan traditions, limited though it surely is, emerges. Not a bum note to be found, just one dope cut after another, plenty to dance to and some to lightly trip out to as well. Possibly the best African reissue I’ve heard this year -- I'm buying three to use as stocking stuffers. (M.L. Thrope)

Here’s a nice twist on the musical Afro-centrism that’s been going on the past few years. The Good Ones are three Rwandan friends who get together to harmonize sweetly (in that perfectly imperfect way) over whatever stringed instrument happens to be nearby; for the recording of Kigali Y’ Izahabu they had one working acoustic guitar (albeit missing two strings) and borrowed one more, and in addition to maybe some wood blocks or the like, that is the sum total of the instrumention on the record. Nothing else is needed. While it’s true that Rwanda’s tragic recent history adds a deep poignance to this music, that too can be forgotten when listening to the gentle sway and flow of this pure, simple sound; songs like “Kacyiry,” “Umuntu Ninkundi” and “Invura Yaranka Geyi,” though sung in a language we don’t know, carry the honesty and convincing authenticity of all good folk music the world ’round. (M.L. Thrope)

For Waiting, For Chasing is gorgeous, just gorgeous, exactly what we’d expect from Pan American, but this release comes with a bit of a twist. Turns out this is not quite new, having been released years ago under a small label and never getting a proper distribution. But that is only part of the story. This recording is quite different from the others by this solo project of LaBradford’s Mark Nelson. More minimal and intimate, For Waiting uses an interesting array of acoustic instruments, including Chinese Singing bowls and cymbals and horns, creating a lovely, harmonic framework for Pan American’s more dark, electronic sounds. Nelson here avoids endless repetition marring too much electronic music these days, opting to deliver a work of dense, rich beauty. Available on vinyl for the first time! (James)

On to Zambia we go, where frontman Rikki Ililonga and his Musi-O-Tunya band pioneered the sort-of genre known simply as Zamrock back in the ’70s. As put forth on the awesome two-disc set Dark Sunrise, in Ililonga’s hands -- as is the case with a lot of creative African music of that decade -- rock music became a Technicolor thing, flavored by traditional African rhythms but also bent thrillingly toward the psychedelic. Ililonga’s guitar work -- supple riffing a la the Velvets at their most playful -- keeps these 31 songs rooted to the earth, which is key on pieces like “The Wings of Africa,“ where jubilance in the form of horns and all manner of additional instrumentation keeps pushing the song closer to heaven. But then you have some almost straight-up ’70s pop songs like “Angel Black,” a crisply breezy love song that pivots on Ililonga’s sweetly yearning vocal, and “Sunshine Love,” very much in a ’60s garage-pop style. A song like “Sansa Kuwa” might just represent the single greatest synthesis of African and Western musics -- and you’d better believe you can dance to it. Yet another mind-blowing treasure from Africa’s recent past! And it comes in a nice, hardcover-bound package, with a trove of photos, notes and more. (M.L. Thrope)

This wild set is from the excellent Dust-to-Digital label -- and in a just world, we shouldn’t have to tell you anything more! Alas... The righteous Reverend Johnny L. Jones, who still hits his Atlanta congregation like a hurricane every Sunday, here releases a double-disc package of rough, bluesy gospel that stretches all the way back to 1957, with nothing previously released. The sermons on The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta -- which rise in pitch and energy and will get any saint or sinner feeling closer to heaven -- and songs are as rousing as anything you can name, but it’s stuff like Jones's radio spots that put this collection over the top. Let’s just say that Troy’s Supermarket probably saw a dramatic increase in business after Jones took to the air for them (“green bell peppers: two for one dollah!”). “Yes to Jesus Christ” will have even stone-cold atheists feeling the passion with its organ-and-singalong power, while Jones’s versions of “When the Gates Swing Open” and “Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child” rank with the most moving I’ve heard. Great, gritty, vibrant American art! (M.L. Thrope)