Top 5 Albums of the Week
Culture Calling's Top 5 albums of the week, an eclectic mix of records from across genres and decades. Come discover weekly albums to bulk out your collection.
By Charlie Walker | Updated Jan 27 2025
Francis Bebey - Concert Pour Un Vieux Masque (1968)
Endlessly fun, melodically innovative, and dextrous beyond belief, Francis Bebey's 9 graceful acoustic pieces will either sing you to sleep or soundtrack your day.
Before Bebey made his foray into the then-new world of electronic music, before quitting his deskjob in his 40s to focus wholly on music, and before popularising his signature one-note flute, Bebey played guitar as good as any classical guitarist of the era.
Deftly atune to melody, with ornate flourishes and staccato changes in tempo and intensity, Bebey's compositions are largely unrepetitive journeys into a key of his choosing, getting hung up on a hook when he feels like it, exploring a riff at liberty.
Improvisational in feel, it's spared from being a jam tape by its delicate, immaculate, and purposeful composition, each track their own reason to exist, each contributing to the whole.
Jorge Ben – Ben (1972)
Another gem from his golden 70s era, straddling samba rock and tropicalia while chucking out whole new genres on the way, Jorge Ben lights up his self-titled with an unrivalled freedom and happiness that makes this, and many of his others, an enrichingly addictive listen.
Even on his more sombre openings, like 'O Circo Chego's moody and spacious intro chords, Jorge just can't resist making it a dance. Same when the minor chords come in for 'Domingo 23', what gives the impression of a melancholic romp quickly becomes another jubilant, all-singing heart-racer. He just can't stop.
He does of course retread similar ground, 'Caramba' sounds a bit like 'Zula', and the opener here is very similar to the opener of A Tabua De Esmeralda, but that's okay, he's only got so many chords on that nylon string of his, and few people on Earth wrote as many songs as he did in the 60s and 70s. Really, the fact that he was still able to write original tunes at this point, still on the guitar, is frankly amazing to me.
Despite containing some of his best known tracks, 'Taj Mahal' and 'Filho Maravilha', this record would barely be in his top 3. It's merely one of many with absolutely zero skips.
2562 – Aerial (2008)
Before dubstep was discovered by Americans and grew to have a bad name, back when Skrillex was still in a hardcore punk band, there existed a now-relatively obscure artist by the name of 2562, based in The Hague yet with a musical output that sounds like it never left the South Circular.
Like fellow countryman Martyn, 2562’s (real name Dave Huismans) dubstep style was largely minimal, 808-heavy, with synth stabs the preferred locus as opposed to the bass-heavy latter days of the genres golden years.
A great introduction for those unaccultured to 140, Aerial’s spooky, moody, yet largely inoffensive (compliment) sonics accentuate the best traits of the genre, being both head-bobbing yet meddling with the unexpected.
Steel Pulse – Caught You (1980)
The first British reggae group to win a Grammy, and loved far beyond the West Midlands, Steel Pulse turned international attention toward the Jamaican and Caribbean diaspora living in Britain.
Caught You tapped into frustrations felt by Black people all across the Black Atlantic; harassment, police brutality, injustice, and, in the face of it all, being positive, focusing on the good, and fighting back without losing your soul doing it.
‘Drug Squad’, the albums best track, makes a complicated case of a man harassed and persecuted by border patrol, taken and stripped with no probable cause, and is found with herb on him. Despite being perhaps unfairly targeted, as the song says, “how did they find out?”, the man was still guilty of possession.
The possible message here is that, while Black people are capable of committing wrongdoing as much as anyone else, their constant targeting routinely criminalises them. Ultimately, you must fight for your rights, even when you’re wrong.
Eola – Dang (2016)
Dreamlike, ethereal, otherworldly, the soundscape of Dang echoes elements of gospel, chamber pop, indie, and early Beach Boys-style bubblegum pop, reverberating in its bellowing walls.
Indistinct instrumentation may support the largely vocal arrangements, much of it itself being vocal tracks altered beyond intelligible recognition, like hearing a vague impression of recorded music rather than music itself. It transcends it, for in listening to Dang you’ll find its mostly your imagination doing the work, like reading good poetry.
The record shines most when imitating the airy tones of choral gospel music, with a strong inflection from 60s pop, nailing the cacophony of dreamy reards like a barbershop quartet on biblical acid. Quite possibly the greatest artist you’ve never heard of.