2007: The best reissues

1 The Very Best of Ethiopiques Various Artists

This album has been floating just outside the Top 10 in Amazon's list of bestselling compilations for six months. Most of those above it are advertised on TV. The album has nothing but word-of-mouth going for it, apart of course from the wonderful music contained within. But why has this collection broken through into the promised land previously reached by only O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Buena Vista Social Club? Is it down to Elvis Costello, whose words of praise have been used on the cover? Or to Jim Jarmusch, who included several instrumental tracks on the soundtrack of his film Broken Flowers

The album is culled from a series of more than 20 compilations under the name Ethiopiques, drawn from music released by small Ethiopian labels during the late 1960s and early 1970s, most of which were not heard outside the country at the time. The series is curated, compiled and annotated by Francis Falceto, who has dedicated his life to the project while being obliged to make a living doing other things. No professionally paid person would ever have spent so much time and trouble, or done it so well.

Instrumentally, it is surprisingly familiar - saxophone, piano and organ are dominant, playing a sound you might have hoped to hear in a bar if you visited Addis Ababa, background music but with languid melodies that become indelible. Vocally, it's stranger, as the singers follow a different kind of melody than we are accustomed to. A distant cousin of jazz, soul and funk, always with a Horn of Africa character.

The compilers, Iain Scott and Steve Bunyan, have whittled Francis's discoveries down to 28 tracks, of which about one-third are instrumentals. If their principle was that these might be more accessible than the vocals, the sales seem to support it. In the original series, Volume 4 was all instrumental, introducing us to the saxophonist Tesfa Maryam Kidané, whose 'Heywêté' launches this collection and whose insidious, slinky tone keeps drawing our attention throughout.

Among the vocal tracks, four are by Mahmoud Ahmed, the singer who has benefited most from Francis' support and who was named Best African Artist at this year's Radio 3 awards for World Music. Both sides of his single 'Erè Mèla Mèla' are here, but one of the revelations is an intensely funky version of the same song, by Sèyfu Yohannès.

If you have never heard this music, an adventure awaits. You may be unsettled at first, but after a while you'll wonder why you found it unusual. It has always belonged to all of us. We just didn't know it.
Charlie Gillett

2 Most of the Remixes... Soulwax

This is where the party starts: the Belgian brothers have brilliantly remixed everyone from the Gossip to Robbie Wiliams, and here were all those cuts, compiled into one non-stop knees-up.

3 Stand! Sly and the Family Stone

Just as Sly Stone reappeared into our lives, all his greatest albums were reissued, with this 1969 classic arguably the pick.

4 Sci-Fi Lo-Fi Vol. 1 Various Artists

Strange but true: electronica champion Andrew Weatherall re-cast himself as a rockabilly rebel with this Fifties-inspired collection of gloriously greasy tunes.

5 The Complete On the Corner Sessions Miles Davis

A beautifully packaged six-disc set, commemorating the point at which Miles got groovy, leaving the jazz purists for dead.

6Dubstep Allstars Vol 5 Various Artists

Only dubstep connoisseurs were familiar with the artists but the music, deep and moody, transcended such concerns.

7 The Time Has Come Anne Briggs

A welcome reminder that the Sixties trad-folk star could have been as big as Sandy Denny had she not become a market gardener.

8 The Triptych Various Artists

Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly put together the sort of mixtape your best mate might make, starring everyone from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to Freq Nasty.

9 Colossal Youth Young Marble Giants

Just as the punk and post-punk seams appeared to be exhausted, here was a long-neglected classic well worth the reissue treatment.

10 Sound of the World 2007 Various Artists

An arguably embarrassing choice because the compiler is OMM contributor Charlie Gillett (see above) : but there could be no better guide to the best in different sounds from around the world this year.