I grind through lots of new record releases toward the end of each calendar year, prepping for my Best Albums reports, so when that’s all done, I tend to spend the ensuing quarter or so just catching up with old stuff in my (large) catalog. As I’ve been happily spinning older faves recently, several seemed like good candidates for one my occasional “Five Songs You Need to Hear” features — so while the wind howls here in Central Iowa tonight, it seemed there was no time like the present to get a little bundle of auditory joy out into the world. Hey presto!

As always, the only connections between these five songs are that I love ’em, and that you probably have not heard ’em. So this series is designed to rectify that that latter situation. If you do like some or all of these songs, and/or the concept in general, hit this link and you can scroll down through all of the earlier installments, too. This is the eleventh piece in the series, so there’s a good mix tape (or Spotify playlist for you streaming weenies) to be made here. And probably enough data points to figure out the current naming convention.

Here we go . . .

#1. “C’est Bon” by Vulkano

#2. “Daughter of the Hillside” by Chicken Shack

#3. “Proper Rock” by The Chap

#4. “Kongsberg” by Yusef Lateef

#5. “A Head Bronco” by Japanther