THERE has been lots of exciting new music released this year.

The quality and frequency of Shabaka Hutchings’s output continues to amaze me. In addition to the relentless album from his intergalactic outfit The Comet Is Coming — Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam (impulse!) — the British jazz superstar also released his solo debut with Afrikan Culture (Impulse!), an astonishing and unexpected collection of meditative tracks.

Two artists struck gold by reaching back into the past to illuminate the present. On The New Faith (Smithsonian Folkways), US folk musician Jake Blount brilliantly reimagines traditional songs from black history to create an Afrofuturist magnum opus about the climate emergency.