Michael Kiwanuka Photo: Richard Ecclestone/Redferns
Small Changes by Michael Kiwanuka
Working with regular producers Inflo and Danger Mouse (Brian Burton), Michael Kiwanuka's fourth album is his most stripped back. It relies on his guitar and voice to largely carry the songs, a trick that works wonders with someone this talented: he's able to convey a large degree of emotion with slight variations in delivery.
Traces of Burton's pop nous and Inflo's deep sense of soul shine through, buoying Kiwanuka's affable, often poignant soul-rock jams.
The songs can start to fall into a melancholic malaise, but then comes 'The Rest of Me', with Kiwanuka ringing out over a wandering bassline and crisp drums. His voice still has a mournful edge, but the song feels like a wide open space after some of its more overcast predecessors.
Eternal Afternoon by Joe Kaptein
Photo: Bandcamp
Since 2019 Joe Kaptein has been uploading albums to his Bandcamp, featuring covers of Burt Bacharach songs and NZ-made hits, as well as original compositions. They started with him playing all the instruments, then gained guest musicians and higher fidelity as they went.
Eternal Afternoon is the first one Kaptein "arranged and produced with a full band".
He has spent time in local jazz supergroup The Circling Sun, and is part of Nathan Haines' combo Soft Chaos. Haines returns the favour by appearing on this album's first track, 'Unwavering'.
For the album release show Kaptein led a nine-piece band from behind what he called a "sonic spaceship of several '70s keyboards", and there's clearly plenty of influence being drawn from that era.
Jazz can feel intimidating to the uninitiated, but the music on Eternal Afternoon is always inviting. And its title feels deliberate. I imagine Joe Kaptein and band existing in a world where the sun is perpetually lower in the sky, cheerfully bopping away for as long as possible.
Piedras 1 & 2 by Nicolas Jaar
Photo: Wissam Sader
Chilean-American musician Nicolas Jaar has had a very successful career making unlikely hits, pairing experimental sounds with the kind of steady kick drum found in dance music, and singing in Spanish.
This release might be his most adventurous, a two-disc score to a serialised radio play he wrote, with a plot as intricate as its compositions.
It's set in Chile at some point in the future, during a digital blackout orchestrated by an anarchist group. Complicating this further, the play's songs, performed by Jaar, are presented as work by a fictional character.
Taken as a body of music alone it's still rewarding; pleasant listening with plenty of subtext under the hood.
Tony Stamp reviews the latest album releases every week on The Sampler.