Politics and music have more often than not been uneasy bedfellows, so when the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968, some of the country’s musicians were on the receiving end. A new series of reissues by boutique label Vampisoul is shining a spotlight on the personal stories of these musicians and the music that got them banned by the Czechoslovakian communist state. A case in point is the career of Marta Kubisová, the most popular of Czechoslovakia's female singers in the late Sixties. Vampisoul's new reissue compilation, Ne! The Soul of Marta Kubisová, focuses on the period from 1966 to 1970, during which she recorded for the Supraphon label, backed by various orchestras and the famous Czech band The Golden Kids. This period provided some of the funkiest grooves to be recorded in Czechoslovakia at the time. But Kubisová soon became a thorn in the side of the communist regime because she chose to sing about the oppressive political situation in her country. By the end of 1969 Kubisová's music had completely disappeared from radio and television and in February 1970 she was banned from performing live, a ban that lasted until 1989 with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. But thanks to Vampisoul her music lives on with this fantastic 25-track compilation. Thumping bass lines, punchy horns, addictive organ funk riffs and great 1960s-styled fuzz guitar combine to offer a raucous take on the rock and soul music of the United States's in the late Sixties. Imagine a soulful psychedelic sound somewhere between the outputs of US labels Stax and Motown, with a singer who has the presence of Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick.

The second Vampisoul reissue in the series compiles the recordings of one of Czechoslovakia's most renowned jazz composers and arrangers and is dubbed The Funky Way of Emil Viklicky. In 1971 Viklicky gave up his mathematics studies to focus on a career as a jazz musician and by 1974 he had teamed up with guitarist Lubos Andrst, whose hard rock band, Energit, had just been banned by the communist state. Together the two musicians transformed Energit into an exciting jazz-rock combo, as evidenced by the 13-minute Ráno (Part 1, Kash Edit). Viklicky also collaborated with jazz singer Eva Svobodová, recording her with a jazz trio as she moved away from Dixieland jazz towards modern jazz. Also included are five of Viklicky's recordings with Bill Frisell, Kermit Deriscoll and Vinnie Johnson, fellow students from when he studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music. These recordings are funky as hell and fans of the work of American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock should be instantly hooked. Vampisoul is planning further releases from Viklicky's catalogue, including some unreleased Big Band recordings of his jazz-funk tunes.

With an Inspiration Information title already released on Strut Records in 2009, this compilation of the Ethiopian jazz legend's work in the late Sixties and early Seventies is a welcome addition to the reissues of Mulatu Astatke's magnificent catalogue. The acclaimed Ethiopiques reissue series and the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers initially brought Astatke into the international spotlight and it has just been announced that Strut will be releasing his first new studio solo album in more than 20 years. This collection traces Astatke's travels from Trinity College London to Harvard and then to New York, where he cut his teeth playing live and recording, fusing Western jazz and funk with Ethiopian melodies. His return to Addis Ababa in the late Sixties saw him become a central figure in the local Ethiopian music scene, mostly as an arranger for other vocalists. If you have a taste for jazz and funk, this album is absolutely essential listening.

Nick Cave and his fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis have been working on film scores together since 2005 when they collaborated on the music for Australian western The Proposition. Since then they have scored 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and recent Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road. White Lunar attempts to compile some highlights from all three of these scores on disc one, but although it serves as a great introduction to these works, the full scores are so magnificent they should be heard in their entirety. But the real treats on this collection are on disc two, where Cave and Ellis's work on a number of lesser-known documentaries is compiled. These recordings have not seen commercial release until now, so fans of the duo’s work will be in their element. As the liner notes state: "The first CD has the big themes, the orchestra and the songs, and the second CD is fractured, haunting and sometimes badly behaved." Pure, unadulterated delight!

This is the second album by former Concretes singer Victoria Bergman since she quit the band back in 2006 and it is by far her best. Her first solo album, Open Field, which featured Electrelane front-woman Verity Susman on piano and backing vocals, was dominated by reverb-heavy minimalist nu-folk, but for East of Eden, Bergman travelled to Pakistan to record with a host of the country's musicians. The result is a mesmerising East-meets-West folk record. Opener To Lose Someone is a beautiful, soothing piece that features the voice of local Sufi musician Sain Muhammad, while Anna features Noah Lennox, Animal Collective's Panda Bear, on backing vocals. But that's not the only Animal Collective link, with Bergman reworking the band's My Girls as My Boys, a fantastic folk take on the song with great Pakistani percussion. Bergman has gone out on a limb with this album and been justly rewarded -- absolutely gorgeous.

In 2008, following a five-year hiatus, Tricky returned with a new album Knowles West Boy. Heralded as a return to form, the album still did not match his seminal work in the late 1990’s. Now we have the remix album, dubbed Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew. Essentially this is an electro/dancehall take on Knowles West Boy and it works surprisingly well. Joseph sounds more urgent than the original, while C’Mon Baby is turned into a stomping dancehall tune, with marching band rhythm and a litany of whistles. Coalition, which references Gil Scott Heron, sounds more aggressive than the original, with its electro-funk styling and Tricky’s take on the Kylie Minogue song Slow -- one of the original album’s highlights -- is now a full on techno banger. It’s not all great, there are a couple of tracks your iPod could do without, but it does prompt the question, what could Tricky produce if his beats were a little more cutting edge?

Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox is one prolific guy -- last year he released one of the year's finest albums with Microcastle and also managed to put out his first album under the Atlas Sound moniker. Now 2009 sees the release of the second Atlas Sound album and it must be in the running for containing one of 2009's greatest songs. I'm talking, of course, about Walkabout, the bubbly pop masterpiece that features Animal Collective's Noah Lennox. But Logos is no one-hit wonder -- the psychedelic down-tempo Criminals is another album highlight and the title track sounds as though it could have been recorded by The Strokes while they were day-tripping on acid. Cox is clearly one of the finest musicians living in the US today and when he puts out records we should all pay attention.

You would be forgiven for being suspicious of rock veterans reforming many years after their careers faltered, but Dinosaur Jr are an exception. They are still able to crank out scintillating slabs of fuzzy rock, every part equal to those late-Eighties and early-Nineties albums that earned them their reputation in their first place. Farm is their second album since their 2005 reformation and it easily matches 2007's Beyond for kick-arse riffage. It is becoming quite clear that if any band has inherited the mantle laid down by Neil Young's Crazy Horse, then Dinosaur Jr is that band. Just take a listen to Ocean's in the Way and Said the People for confirmation. Bassist Lou Barlow contributes two songs to Farm, the first a stomping indie-rock tune called Your Weather and the second, Imagination Blind, closes the album. But it is guitarist J Mascis's songwriting prowess that really shines throughout and his guitar work is just magnificent. I didn't realise how much I missed them until they returned. Welcome back Dinosaur Jr!