Album: Mulatu Astatke/ The Heliocentrics, Inspiration Information 3 (Strut)

Spiky guitar riffs, restrained bursts of brass, and glitchy interjections make this a consistently engaging recasting of the 1970s Ethiopian grooves featured on the popular Ethiopiques CD series. The Heliocentrics are a somewhat cerebral UK musicians collective, and composer Astatke is one of the genre's original stars, so it's an unlikely pairing. But the result is as vital a tribute to this haunting, sinuous music as last year's debut from Dub Colossus.

Pick of the Album: 'Mulatu' marries beats to a pleasingly sinister melody