Here comes the sun. Last spring saw the release of Trésor Magnétique, the latest posthumous compilation highlighting the works of Cameroonian musicologist, writer, composer, and broadcaster Francis Bebey. Culled from Bebey’s seemingly endless archives by his son Patrick, the collection unearths deep cuts spanning 1974 to 1986.

The musical and psychic evolution of Matt “MV” Valentine traces a wide-ranging and gloriously unwieldy trajectory through sound and space for those intrepid enough to follow it. Spanning the earliest days of Tower Recordings, a bevy of solo albums, one of the most exhaustive and rewarding live recording archives you can dig into, and twenty-five years copiloting the fantastic voyage of MV&EE, Valentine has never stopped pushing the music outward and onward. And it doesn’t get any farther out than the freewheeling funkified flights of Wet Tuna.

It would be a mistake to take the simplicity of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s songs at face value. Certainly, his tunes do have a pared down grace. And yet, listen closely and you’ll catch the embellishments, the flicker of saxophone, the soft cushion of strings, the flutter of flute, the smoke wreathes of communal singing. The center, as always, is Will Oldham, his tetchy, querulous voice, his warm way with melody, his startling, occasionally absurdist sprays of poetic imagery, but these songs are beautifully filled out by a cast of long-time friends and neighbors from the Louisville area.

Recorded in 1993 for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, African Skies received its first reissue earlier this year via the new Stones Throw imprint, Listening Position. On commission for Adler, the seven tracks find Cohran decades removed from his seminal works with Sun Ra and The Artistic Heritage Ensemble, but very much in the pocket both tonally and spiritually. A “multisensory, Afrocentric journey into the starlit sky,” the recordings originally served as the planetarium’s score to sweeping panoramic footage of the cosmos as seen from various telescopes positioned throughout the African continent.

In some ways, Shintaro Sakamoto’s fifth record Yoo-hoo follows a continuation of the pop-centric sensibilities of Like A Fable: lifting backdrops of surf guitar, Spector-like orchestration and funky exotica crafted for the dancefloor in a way that only Sakamoto could usher into existence. Yet another work of an auteur of his musical craft, the album sees Sakamoto channel midcentury Japanese styles like “Mood Kayō”, drawing from Latin rhythms and Hawaiin compositions. As has become customary, the musician is able to masterfully curate shadowy corners of the past to create something exceptionally neoteric.

Tracked live to tape at Sessa and Biel Basile’s São Paulo studio, Krok captures the Belarusian outfit in a moment of transition, stretching the sinewy tendrils of their earlier work into something more expansive and self-possessed. Where their previous LP steeped itself in the gentle saudade of Brazil’s Clube da Esquina, Krok pulls the lens back as the palette broadens and horizons turn transcontinental.

More stunning Takoma School ragas from Joshua Massad and Dylan Aycock, whose self-titled 2020 cassette has been in constant rotation over the past few years. This one is the duo’s vinyl debut — and as the title tells us, we’re invited to luxuriate in two long improvs, both stretching well beyond the 15-minute mark.

Never garnering quite the level of attention of Fukui’s debut masterpiece Scenery, 1977’s smooth Mellow Dream is just that: another soulful, excellent record by the Japanese jazz innovator. Amidst pieces inspired by earlier jazz pianist greats like Bill Evans and Barry Harris, the major highlight “Baron Potato Blues” is an epic piece crafted in the Coltrane/Tyner mold.