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Leon Bridges: Gold-Diggers Sound
New album: Delicate soul mixed with R&B, Afrobeat, late-night jazz and even a dash of country come in this third LP by the 32-year-old singer, songwriter and record producer, filled with heartbreak and hope stemming from events of the past year
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Welcome 2 America is the third Prince LP since his death in 2016
New album: The third posthumous album since the Purple One’s untimely passing in 2016 stands out as the best for a long time, including when he was alive, packed with punchy funk, soul, and social commentary that echoes peak-period Curtis Mayfield
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Joel Culpepper’s debut LP
New album: With an impressive, extraordinary vocal range, especially in falsetto, the south-east Londoner’s debut LP feels like an instant soul and funk classic, bulked great bass and brass, and shored up with a team of top-notch producers
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Shungudzo
New album: An impassioned, political debut album by the Zimbabwean-American artist, activist former gymnast and soul singer touching on climate change to race issues to women’s rights, typified in first singe It’s a Good Day (To Fight The System)
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Charlotte Day Wilson: ALPHA
New album: This serenely soulful debut by the Toronto singer-songwriter and producer is a slow, sensual, and mature, drawing on elements of gospel, folk, jazz and R&B, but is beautifully minimal and restrained
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New album: With limited availability, an excellent fifth album in two years by the collective headed by producer Inflo (Dean Josiah) centres around growing up in inner city London with a mix of old-school soul and African styles
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The Go! TeamGet Up Sequences Part One
New album: The Brighton sextet return with their sixth LP and their distinctive brand of joyous sound clash, syncopated big drums, female singing and rapping, flutes, glockenspiels, steel drums and the full kitchen sink
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The third album by Hiatus Kaiyote
New album: This wonderful third album by the Melbourne band is a free-flowing beauty - like a butterfly garden of jazz, soul as well as Brazilian influences from time spent with veteran composer Arthur Verocai and Amazonian indigenous Varinawa communities
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Dean Blunt
New album: This follow-up to the 2014 album by the East Londoner frontman of the mischievous alt-pop duo Hype Williams (named after the video director) is a bizarre, offbeat collection of 10 short songs mixing droll, deep-voiced delivery with a range of almost cinematic instrumentation
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Greentea Peng’s debut LP Man Made
Album review: The debut album by the south Londoner is has woozy, easy, hazy, lazy summer feel, a mix of languid hip hop, reggae, jazz, and soul with a dash of dub, a dribble of drum’n’bass and even psych with a hippie sprinkle
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Jorja Smith’s new release Be Right Back
Album review: It’s about the voice. A classy, silky smooth minimalist new mini-album of eight songs heralds the return of the 23-year-old soul and R&B singer-songwriter from Walsall, following up from her acclaimed 2018 album Lost & Found
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Robert Finley shows it’s never too late …
Album review: This fabulous third LP by the 67-year-old soul singer is produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, and filled with gritty, goosebump moments, his soaring and tender delivery bringing out every emotion
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St Vincent: Daddy’s Home now …
Album review: This superb new LP by Annie Clark is inspired by the look, sounds and feel of grimy early 70s New York, creating a work of of sleazy sophistication, the sounds of electric sitar, a Steely Dan, and an edgy joke title referring to the release of her father from prison
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Sophia Kennedy’s Monsters - impossible to control or define
Album review: An unholy, beguiling and at times mischievously brilliant mixture of pop, Tin Pan Alley, vintage showtunes, hip hop, abstract electronica and horror film culture, the Baltimore-born, Hamburg-bred artist is just as impossible to define as to not enjoy
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More of Tony Allen’s work posthumously in collaboration with guest artists
Album review: Entertainingly diverse posthumous album bringing together recordings by the great drummer and Afrobeat pioneer with Femi Kuti, here matched here with guests from soul to hip hop, including Sampa The Great, Skepta, Damon Albarn, and Lava La Rue
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Album review: The high-class purveyor of late 50s and 60s vintage soul, jazz, blues and R&B returns with one his best yet, with the shuffle of rhythm, the twang of guitar and the dangle of quiff with those Buddy Holly/Clark Kent looks
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Two peas in a pod: cover art art from Deacon by serpentwithfeet
Album review: An unusually delicate, tender and eccentric affectionately album of gospel-infused R&B about a black gay relationship and friendships, the second by Baltimore-born Brooklyn-based singer Josiah Wise
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Israel Nash
Album review: The Texas singer-songwriter’s latest LP indeed is a gem – infused with slow country, prog rock, southern gospel-soul, the folk and ‘70s psych-rock, with more than a dash of Neil Young, slide guitar and geographical reference
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Valerie June
Album review: This sublime fifth album by the soul singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Memphis, Tennessee includes a guest appearance by the legendary Carla Thomas
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In Quiet Moments
Album review: Partly released in December, now in full, this is a supreme soul and jazz crossover double album with a stellar cast of guest vocalists, by Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde and former Jesus & Mary Chain drummer Richie Thomas
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