While their On the Level, You're a Little Devil is a longstanding favorite I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra's instrumental music until I listened to the first volume of Black Manhattan - it's refreshing, sparkling, and full of zest and pep. A little samey, but so what?

Rechenzentrum's Director's Cut nicely straddles the line between regular and ambient techno and, fitting with its title, is pleasantly cinematic without actually sounding like a Hollywood movie or getting obnoxious with it.

It took a while for me to warm up to Rajan Ke Sirtaj by (Pandit) Jasraj, specifically his rather disinterested-sounding vocals. I feared it was one of those rare occasions where herkyjerky led me astray, but then I started nodding off while listening to and it mingled with my dreams and got good! Funny how that happens. But wait, there's more! I put The Meditative Music of Pandit Jasraj on later and it's exquisite - his husky half-croak in front of the tabla and tambura and I'm-not-sure-what-else backdrop, well, at the risk of exoticizing the other, sounds like a dying alien emissary's last transmission from a dusty desert world to his home planet. It is intensely psychedelic. Fuck psych rock, just listen to Hindustani classical - that's where the Beatles stole all their ideas, anyway. Well, it and Zappa and musique concrete.

Jazz and Hot Dance in South Africa 1946-1959 was the very first Western comp to cover the subject and it's a hoot and a half - the vocals are pretty much the only part of the music that doesn't hit my sweet spot hard AND it's jazz clarinet heaven to boot!

Laxmikant–Pyarelal's Jaal opens with Mohd. Rafi's slinky and nocturnal "Akela Joon Mai" and which mixes the comically sinister with the dreamy. Too bad the other three tracks are utterly nondescript.

The Spazz/Charles Bronson split makes it apparent to anyone who wondered just why both bands are so revered in their scene(s): Spazz's side repeatedly throws multiple tempo changes in under 45 seconds while still remaining punk as fuck, perfectly combining the cerebral and the visceral. Plus, "Hard Boiled" has the bangingest drums I've ever heard in hardcore. Charles Bronson are just plain angry, though, and the youthful, squeaky vox compliment the assault miraculously and give the band way more personality than your average fast 'n' loud kids.

Sora No Niwa by Akino Arai saves its best track for last - the acappella lullaby "Little Edie" is beauty and innocence and sweetness - it's too bad that the record that it acts as coda to is massively uneven: too many tracks seem like toothless pop/rock; not egregious but perhaps over-interested in pleasing the wrong kinds of people; but when the flutes and oboes come in, the album goes dream pop or turns blatant Kate Bush homage, then things really cook!

Charanjit Singh's Instrumental Film Tunes is a real corker, but is notable for two things in particular: introducing me to an instrument called the "Transicord" (!!!) and a cover of "Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne," which would be a highlight just due to the song choice, but is elevated further by the choice of instrument, Hawaiian guitar, which gives it a resemblance to the tracks on one of my most cherished Sublime Frequencies comps, Bollywood Steel Guitar.