Tsvia Abarbanel - "Mi Nishkani"

I won't pretend to be up on my private pressing Yemenite jazz of the 1970s but I know enough to keep tabs on folks and labels who do know about these things. Fortuna Records are a Soundcloud follow I first came across when they posted material from Grazia. More recently they released the Eastern Soul EP from Tsvia Abarbanel and "Mi Nishkani" is a track I keep coming back to. The thumpy tom drum with its distortion is strangely beguiling and insistent and the same can be said for Abarbanel's soaring vocals. Plus there's this intensely jazzy riff on the piano that comes in and out and could've come from an Erroll Garner track.

Menagerie - "Leroy & The Lion"

Aussie Lance Ferguson (Lanu / The Bamboos) is the best thing to come out of that country since that great smelling shampoo. His new spiritual jazz project Menagerie features Roy Ayers on the track below. Menagerie - Leroy & The Lion by Tru Thoughts