Nearly 50 years ago, a bright-eyed Ethiopian teen arrived in Wrexham, a county borough in the northeastern part of Wales. His parents had sent him nearly 4,000 miles from home to attend a renowned ...

Review of Inspiration Information compiled by Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics. Every now and then, even in times of musical recession, a release hits that commands you to sit up and pay attention.

Open ears might know the name of ’60s African jazz master Astatke from hismusic for Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers, but this collaboration with the U.K.-based Heliocentrics (who’ve backed DJ ...

If jazz is a dead language, “Inspiration Information 3” (Strut) is speaking in tongues. This music is a revelation, sensual and brainy, rhythmically daring and melodically lush. The signifiers of jazz ...

This UK-based funk ensemble took its name from a Sun Ra album. One listen to A World Of Masks and you'll hear why. Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you ...

Melodies shimmer within the depths of a narcotised haze, teasing the ear, the extraterrestrial bleep and chatter of The Heliocentrics’ sci-fi rock enticing us to the freak limits, pushing us all the ...

Neo-jazz collective El Michels Affair channels the Wu-Tang Clan on Enter the 37th Chamber. Photo courtesy Fat Beats RecordsThe digital age has globalized distribution lines and taste patterns. That is ...

February 14, 2020 • Tame Impala, the K-pop band Monsta X and a new solo album from Nathaniel Rateliff top our shortlist for this week's best new releases.

Pioneering UK collective The Heliocentrics resurface alongside a fascinating jazz enigma, ethno-musicologist, jazz maestro and multi-instrumentalist, Lloyd Miller. Miller’s lifelong interest in ...

Mulato Astatke, the supernaturally calm 67-year-old, delicately bounced his three wooden mallets off its aluminium bars, and an enraptured Barbican audience was transported back to a buzzing Addis ...

It’s easy to see why Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz, and the London-based Heliocentrics hit it off from the moment they met. The 68-year-old Astatke has spent his life developing new and ...