The ’70s didn’t end. They just got more elastic. Strut’s Nigeria 80 catches Nigerian popular music in that beautiful, unruly stretch between Afrobeat’s explosion and whatever came next—juju, funk, highlife, reggae, proto-hip-hop, and plenty of glorious cross-pollination along the way.

Rustling wind. Check. Ambient bird calls. Check. Serpentine Hohner Clavinet funk. Check. Originally released in Copenhagen in the winter of 1979, Klaus Schønning’s Lydglimt was reissued in 2020 via the ever-sleuthing Frederiksberg Records. A baker’s dozen, the record is a taut embrace of ice cold synths and a Teac 4-track recorder.

Antonio Adolfo hated his 1972 solo debut. Intensely. He banned it from his official discography and denounced it whenever it resurfaced online. Yet the slightly off singing may be exactly what gives the self-titled LP its charm: there’s a Robert Wyatt or Scott Walker quality to Adolfo’s naturally dramatic timbre, with little bent edges creating tension against the jazz-inflected solos, basslines and gently cinematic arrangements. The result is a strange, beautiful record its creator wanted forgotten.

Everything about Pharoah Sanders’ eponymous 1977 album is a gift. It’s a masterpiece of quiet mystique and joy that almost never was. Despite the fact that the maestro himself was never satisfied with the album and rarely spoke about it, Pharaoh took on a life of its own over the next four decades to become one of Sanders’ most hallowed and revered recordings.

A beautiful, dislocated trip through bedroom psychedelia, haunted melodies and hazy, otherworldly textures. Like tuning into Someone’s dreams on an old, discarded shortwave radio.

Deep-cut Jamaican dub from 1975. Produced by Clive Chin at Randy’s Studio 17 in Kingston, Jamaica.

The first White Fence record in over seven years, the chiming guitars and Ty Segall back behind the drum kit and console convey a warbly and mysteriously optimistic guiding light.

Common One was the album Van Morrison had been trying to make for ten years. It would mark the furthest he had moved away from the sounds of Astral Weeks, while still maintaining the sonic and literary craftsmanship of the legendary session.