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Mokoomba: Tusona - Tracings In The Sand
New album: A gloriously uplifting new release by the collective from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, joined by the horns of Ghanaian highlife band Santrofi in celebratory songs inspired by Makisi dance gatherings and sung in various languages - Tonga, Luvale, Shona, Nyanja and even Lingala
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Meshell Ndegeocello: The Omnichord Real Book, out on Blue Note
New album: Classy, supercool and stylish, the revered German-born American bassist and vocalist returns with an album of distinctive and varied fusion of funk, jazz, Afrobeat, electronica and hip hop with a variety of distinctive guests
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WITCH are back with Zango, their first album since 1984
New album: After a whopping 38 years’ absence, Zambia’s pioneers of zamrock (their name an acronym We Intend To Cause Havoc) return with their heady and wonderful mix of psychedelic rock, reggae, Afrobeat and funk
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Desert meets country: Tinariwen’s Amatssou
New album: A fabulous new release by the north Mali nomadic group whose distinctive Tuareg Saharan desert blues is beautifully combined with a country style, with added pedal steel and violin, and a title that is is Tamashek for ‘Beyond The Fear’
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Fatoumata Diawara: London KO
New album: The Mali star returns with an third LP, mixing Afro-futurism and feminism wassoulou traditions and western, but also celebrating her links the UK and and collaborations, notably with co-producer Damon Albarn, and other guest including Angie Stone and Roberto Fonseco
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Alfa Mist’s fifth album, Variables
New album: A brilliantly inventive mix of dynamic, textured, vibrant jazz, funk, prog, African, and hip hop, from big band swing, boom-bap rhythms smooth, soulful vocals, all in a fifth LP the London keyboardist and producer
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Dave Okumu & The 7 Generations: I Came From Love
New album: A rich, complex and brilliant release about black history, identity, and channelling the idea of ancestry by British singer, songwriter, producer and guitarist joined by a stellar cast of fellow artists, including Wesley Joseph, Tom Skinner, ESKA and Grace Jones
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Desire Marea: On The Romance of Being
New album: An extraordinary, beautiful, passionate, spiritual and erotic new solo LP by the South African multidisciplinary artist, sangoma (Nguni spiritual healer), and previously part of queer gqom group FAKA, now with a 13-piece orchestral ensemble mixing soul, jazz, rock and Zulu chants
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The Go! Team: Get Up Sequences Part Two
New album: Ian Parton’s Brighton band return, in their follow-up to 2021’s Part One, with a truly joyous, upbeat and vibrantly colourful, wham-bam wonder tour of worldwide cultural vocals and samples ranging from Benin to Japan, France, India, Texas and Detroit
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Young Fathers’s fourth album, Heavy Heavy
New album: There’s nothing quite like them. Joyous energy and endless invention, the Edinburgh trio’s fourth LP is filled with soulful, emotional vocals, fabulous oddball, dynamic beats and sound textures, and already an album of the year contender
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Rian Treanor and Ocen James: Saccades
New album: A wonderfully original, vibrant collaboration between the Rotherham electronica experimentalist/producer and the Acholi fiddle player, inspired by a residency in Kampala and building on 2020’s album File Under UK Metaplasm
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Makaya McCraven: In These Times
New album: An intricately beautiful and mesmeric fusion of polyrhythm and melody by the Paris-born, Chicago-based percussionist and composer, bringing together cosmic jazz, hip-hop breakbeats, funk, classical and African influences on this sublime fourth album, released back in September
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From the cover art of Iota by Lous and the Yakuza
New album: After her hard-hitting 2020 trap, pop and Congolese beats debut, Gore, the Belgian-Congolese rapper, singer, model and artist Marie-Pierra Kakoma returns with a dreamy, smooth eclectic mix of rap, pop, and electronica
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Five more fabulous albums by Sault
New albums: An unprecedented five albums landing simultaneously without warning, and with a temporary free download period on the mysterious London collective’s website, producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover) and co have again brought untold riches in soul, funk, gospel, jazz, RnB, hip-hop, experimental and contemporary classical
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And the band plays on … Ezra Collective: Where I'm Meant To Be
New album: Energetic, infectiously positive new album by the outstanding five London jazz musicians, infusing also funk and African influences, and including guests rappers Kojey Radical and Sampa the Great, and singers Emeli Sandé and Nao
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Goat are back, giving birth to their latest LP, Oh Death
New album: The masked and mysterious Swedish collective return with their fourth studio LP, (not counting 2021’s Headsoup compilation) with a gloriously unholy fusion of psychedelic, prog and heavy rock, African and Indian influences centred around life’s ultimate end-meaning
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The Mars Volta return with their first LP in a decade
New album: After a decade of omertà and schism, the eclectic Texanprog-rock experimental duo of Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and band finally reunite with a mesmerically unique blend of funk, rock, psychedelia, Cuban and Afro-Cuban drumming and English and Spanish lyrics
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Sampa The Great’s second album reaches different heights
New album: A swaggeringly stylish, sharp, soulful, funny, proclamatory new release by rapper and singer Sampa Tembo celebrating her return to her native Zambia, with rebuffs to her previous home Australia and its music industry, and nods to Zamrock, lyrics in the Bantu language, and multiple African and other collaborators
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Kokoroko: Could We Be More
New album: Variously mesmeric, chilled, smooth, staccato, slow then pacy, after many gigs and smaller releases the eight-piece London jazz and Afrobeat band finally have an LP of stirring (mostly) instrumentals that mix a variety of influences from Lagos to London
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Vieux Farka Touré: Les Racines
New album: Exquisite seventh studio album by Boureima "Vieux" Farka Touré, Malian singer and sublime guitarist, the player known as ‘the Hendrix of the Sahara’, as well as being the son of Mali’s great Ali Farka Touré
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