Album: Skeletons, Smile (Impossible Ark)

Composer and bandleader Benedic Lamdin of Nostalgia 77 fashions an homage to Ethiopiques-style African jazz and exotica, using offcuts of previously commissioned library music (the skeletons in his cupboard) as the primary source material.

The trouble is, while perfectly satisfactory as half-heard background hum, the music is neither sufficiently funky nor sufficiently out-there weird to command attention, especially in a world teeming with excellent, cheap Afrobeat comps.