Often while I’m scouring various lists for new releases, I pass over a whole lot of reissues. Sometimes you can get excited about some previously unreleased studio sessions, but it’s almost never the case. However, today there’s an exception: Django Reinhardt, a musician who died over half a century ago, has a handful of recordings up his white-lapelled suit sleeve. Airwaves is one of dozens of compilations that have been released over the past few decades, but this one has several gems that haven’t gone through the whitewashing of modern remastery. The warmth is still there, the clips and pops left on the tracks like little scars, reviving the character that good music in Django’s era carried without question.
The Crystal Method were one of the most ostensible bands of the 90s producer boom. They made densely layered electronic music palatable to the masses, so much so that their old songs are seen today as caricatures of the genre. If that’s what Grammy nominations get musicians, then it’s worth waiting five years to hear a new record from them; one that proves modern sugary production to be over-simple. Everything on 
