On the album Sediments We Move, set for release next month on New Amsterdam Records, the singer and saxophonist Charlotte Greve and her art-pop quartet Wood River join forces with Cantus Domus, sifting through their influences in orchestral, synth-pop, and jazz for a progressive take on choral music. The lyricist Havadine Stone and the multi-instrumentalist Ben Baker Billington combine as Blue Lick for static odes to the staccato beauty of the Midwest. And on Black Encyclopedia of the Air, the spectral poetry of Moor Mother spits and crackles at the centre of a circle of collaborators including Elucid, Antonia Gabriela, Maassai, and Nappy Nina.
A couple of New York’s finest put themselves on full display as Wiki and MIKE strive to stay invested in the rap game over production by Navy Blue. Daniel Lopatin enlists Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins for a glistening revamp of ‘Tales from the Trash Stratum’. And Okay Kaya puts her own inimitable twist on the benevolent gospel of Mahalia Jackson, while the Nashville singer-songwriter Adia Victoria helms an all-star tribute to Blind Willie McTell as she rolls through the patchwork landscapes of A Southern Gothic.
There are adaptations and acknowledgements too on Deciphering the Message, where the beat scientist Makaya McCraven digs through the Blue Note vault to put a modern bounce on jazz classics beginning with ‘Autumn in New York’ by the guitarist Kenny Burrell. Proc Fiskal delivers sunlit shards of Gaelic folk, Magda Mayas explores the scores of Tina Douglas, Blackhaine figures redemption through the frame of a Salford hotel, and Nas settles down for Sunday brunch with hookah smoke and bottomless Bellinis. Kedr Livanskiy, Kehlani, Prettybwoy, Xenia Rubinos, Amaarae, and Terrence Dixon also feature in the latest roundup of new music.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Prettybwoy – ‘Destination’ (feat. IIII)
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Kehlani – ‘Altar’
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Wiki – ‘Promised’ (feat. MIKE)
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Nas – ‘Brunch on Sundays’ (feat. Blxst)
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Magda Mayas & Tina Douglas – ‘Point 3’
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Kedr Livanskiy – ‘Your Turn’ (feat. Flaty)
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Proc Fiskal – ‘Humancargoe Esst’
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Charlotte Greve, Wood River, and Cantus Domus – ‘Part I’
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Adia Victoria – ‘You Was Born To Die’ (feat. Kyshona, Margo Price, and Jason Isbell)
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Okay Kaya – ‘If I Can Help Somebody’
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Makaya McCraven – ‘Autumn in New York (AKA Spring in Chicago)’
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Xenia Rubinos – ‘Don’t Put Me In Red’
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Terrence Dixon – ‘Four Fourty Eight’
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Amaarae & Moliy – ‘SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY (Remix)’ (feat. Kali Uchis)
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Oneohtrix Point Never & Elizabeth Fraser – ‘Tales from the Trash Stratum’
