Best Tracks: Watch the Children
Genre: Spoken Word, Jazz Funk
Year: 2021

Adrian Younge is behind some of my favourite jazz albums to come out since the ’70s, but this album is an exception. The songs are decent, combining jazz-funk with gorgeous, string-backed soul. That being said, my biggest issue is with the pacing. Almost every other track on here is a <1 min spoken-word interlude. These interludes aren’t filler, the message they convey is the conceptual core of this project, but they aren’t great to listen to either. The American Negro has a very stop-and-go feeling, leaving the album without a satisfying climax or ending. Even the musical tracks here are short. The album never gets a chance to build on itself before it ends. I understand the goal of this project is discomfort, but Younge doesn’t have to create a musically unsatisfying album to go against the status quo.

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Best Tracks: Cost of Business, Yah’s Shorthand, Uknowhut?
Genre: Jazz Rap, Psychedelia
Year: 2023

Another concise and consistent rapper & producer project to come out of the 2020s. Ritual is for fans of the recent billy woods or Black Thought albums. Old-school-ish hip hop with an alternative, experimental attitude. Ritual is an album that blends raw psychedelic soul with modern jazz rap. It sounds like a mix between Beauty and the Beat and Glorious Game.

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Best Tracks: Speak to Me/Breathe, Money, Brain Damage/Eclipse
Genre: Rock, Psychedelia
Year: 1973

Dark Side of the Moon was, for a very long time, the best album I had ever heard. But even though I consider it perfect, it is not without its lowlights. Grand, conceptual themes come at the cost of having weaker moments: the annoying transition into “Time”, the repetitiveness of “Us and Them”. Pink Floyd could have focused on making each track equally as strong as the last, but that would have deprived the album of its dynamics and its incredible ending.

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