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Raze Regal & White Denim Inc
New album: The virtuoso experimental Texas rock band fronted by James Petralli join old friend and singer/ guitarist formerly of Oakland’s Once and Future Band in a pacy tapestry of cleverly interwoven psych, prog, funk, jazz and rock, with added echoes of Steely Dan
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Sen Morimoto: Diagnosis
New album: The Chicago-based Japanese singer, rapper and jazz multi-instrumentalist’s new LP comprises a richly eclectic, dynamic selection of songs with an overriding theme of seeking the right direction in life
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Bex Burch: There Is Only Love and Fear
New album: Charming eccentric, experimental debut by the Leeds-raised Berlin-based composer, percussionist, producer and instrument maker whose LP conjures up delicate, rhythmic African-inflected jazz-folk-traditional magic with variety of acoustic-instrument collaborators alongside her very own handmade xylophone
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Six years after his Mercury prize-winning debut, Process, Sampha returns with his second LP, Lahai
New album: The London-born, gentle-and-high-voiced singer-musician and acclaimed Mercury winner for his 2017 debut, Process, finally returns, after many other projects, with an intricate, sensitive, ethereal follow-up
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Armand Hammer: We Buy Diabetic Test Trips
New album: A mesmerically smart, articulate, experimental hip-hop LP packed with ideas, samples and slick delivery by the New York rapper aka Billy Woods and guests, interweaving endlessly inventive, dreamlike hazy maze of voices, stories and sounds
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Matthew Halsall: An Ever Changing View
New album: An LP of delicious, delicate jazz- and African-inflected instrumentals by the Manchester jazz trumpeter, here with a gorgeous, colourful palette of sounds – woodwind, harp, electronica, thumb piano, organ and his own beautiful brass
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Alabaster DePlume: Come With Fierce Grace
New album: After last year’s Gold, another offbeat, truly oddball but original offering by Manchester-raised, London-based Gus Fairburn, his jittery side-of-mouth sax style and gnomic, mantra-style lyrics with guest such as Guinea vocalist Falle Nioke and polyrhythmic drummer Sarathy Korwar to fuse Afrobeat with clunky alt-folk-jazz
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Corinne Bailey Rae: Black Rainbows
New album: A landmark of powerful storytelling and songwriting in this fourth album by the Leeds-born singer with songs inspired by immersion into a rich collection of art, books and artefacts about Black history organised by Theaster Gates at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago
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Yussef Dayes: Black Classical Music
New album: Taking a title cue from Miles Davis, a brilliant, landmark 19-track debut LP by the supremely gifted British jazz drummer variously exploring and re-interpreting many sides of 70s funk, reggae and afrobeat, joined by a stellar group of musicians and vocalists
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Kofi Flexxx: Flowers In The Dark - featuring Shabaka Hutchings and a stellar jazz and rapping lineup
New album: Another vibrant new project by the illustriously creative tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings of Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors, with a potent mix of jazz, spoken word and hip-hop and a stellar lineup
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Danger Mouse and Jemini The Gifted One - Born Again
New album: Delayed by almost two decades, but worth the wait, this stylish hip-hop follow-up to 2003’s acclaimed Ghetto Pop Life LP is a second collaboration between producer Brian Burton and New York MC
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The posthumous Jamie Branch album and the third in the Fly or Die series
New album: A posthumous release for the brilliantly innovative New York Chicago-raised jazz trumpeter with punk ethic or died last year aged just 39, with wonderful experimental sounds following 2017’s Fly Or Die and 2019’s Fly Or Die II – Bird Dogs of Paradise albums
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Rhiannon Giddens: You're The One
New album: The Greensboro-raised singer-songwriter and brilliant banjo player of Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters returns with her first solo album for six years, for the first time mostly originals, continuing her focus on black culture reclamation of catchy, soulful country and Americana
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Genesis Owusu
New album: A stylish, punchy, truly eclectic release by the Ghanaian-Australian singer from Canberra, (real name Kofi Owusu-Ansah) with a potent mash of hip-hop, punk, funk, metal, soul and electro-pop, and a running lyrical metaphor of cockroaches
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Noname’s second album, Sundial
New album: Super-slick, intelligent, angry but beautiful rap and and soul by the Chicago poet Fatimah Nyeema Warner in this second album after 2018’s debut, Room 25, building on her uncompromising perspectives on Black culture, racism, relationships and celebrity double-standards
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Knower’s Genevieve Artadi and Louis Cole
New album: A third jazz-funk tour de force LP of outstanding musicianship, infinite energy, humour and invention by the LA duo of singer Genevieve Artadi and genius drummer and multi-instrumentalist Louis Cole joined by a host of brilliant players
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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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McKinley Dixon: Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?
New album: A short but poetically vivid and emotionally stirring fourth album by the articulate, flowing Richmond, Virginia rapper and musician, a title inspired by Toni Morrison’s book trilogy, and filled with city-inspired jazz soundscapes and great guest vocalists
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Rahill: Flowers At Your Feet
New album: Cool, stylishly original trip-hop, jazz, alt-rock and pop by the New York Iranian-American singer-songwriter Rahill Jamalifard on a deeply personal release which also includes guests Beck and Jasper Marsalis
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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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