Dorothy Carter began her musical career in the avant-garde and ended up an early music revivalist/popularizer. In between these two poles, she made two records that fittingly reside somewhere in the middle. For her first solo album, Troubadour, originally released in 1976 on her own label and now reissued by Drag City, she explored more traditional zones, evoking and interpreting gnostic hymns, ancient airs and cosmic carols with fidelity and freshness.

“Rated X” lacks the monumental sound collage quality of its taped compatriots. The quick (for this era of Miles) seven-minute tune leans into a minimal chaos, almost as if In a Silent Way was recorded in the depths of hell. What begins in disarray slowly becomes the most cohesive thing you’ve ever heard.

This recently released compilation from Les Disques Bongo Joe finds the Geneva-based label once again crate digging with Brussels-based DJ and producer DJ soFa, this time for a global submersion of offbeat, outer zone dance music that glistens with sun-kissed grooves of reggae, calypso, and leftfield dance music.

Streetwise psychedelic latin soul from the absolute master of the form. Salsoul is like a perfect summer day in New York, where everything is held in a golden light and steady streams from open hydrants send little rainbows hovering over the sidewalk.

If you’re wondering where to head after Dadawah and Heart of the Congos, this ain’t a bad next step. Man from Higher Heights is a roots reggae jammer shrouded in mystery. Released in 1983 with no mention of players or lineup, the album is credited to legendary Rastafaian drummer and bandleader Count Ossie, who died in a car crash seven years earlier.

Branching off their Nippon Acid Folk 1970​-​1980 compilation, Time Capsule’s reissue of Niningashi’s 1974 LP Heavy Way is a gem of private press, outsider psych. Recorded and self-released while in pharmacy school, the young Tokyo-based musician and his six-piece band captured lightning in a bottle here, and sound like they had fun doing it.

… Mississippi Records reissue of last year’s revelatory, Keanu Nelson album Wilurarrakutu to a worldwide audience. Nelson is an aboriginal Australian from Papunya, a remote community northwest of Alice Springs, and for this album he recorded himself freely singing his own poems over template Casio beats. Expect simple reggaes, apotheotic synthpop ballads, and new age devotional hymns.

From the aeronautical title to the space chants and exotica flourishes, the irrepressible Estonia-born, Portugal-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Misha Panfilov has made To The Mesosphere and Beyond a winning and winding homage to early Sun Ra.