JP Bimeni & The Black Belts
Give Me Hope
(Lovemonk Records)
★★★★

MICHAEL Kiwanuka, Leon Bridges and Curtis Harding – many contemporary artists take hefty inspiration from ’60s American soul music.

Though perhaps none more so than Burundi-born JP Bimeni. His second album is in deep debt to legends like Otis Redding and Ben E King, which is no bad thing of course, especially when the music is as full of life and emotion as this.

For example, Find That Love’s slow burn melody and Bimeni’s classic-sounding vocals brings to mind Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come, while the spoken word interlude echoes Marvin Gaye’s spiritual musings.

With Bimeni’s young life touched by war and trauma – he fled the Burundi civil war in the early ’90s as a teenager, ending up in Wales – the set’s central message, much like his hero Bob Marley, is one of unity, love and hope.

Beirut
Artifacts
(Pompeii Records)
★★★★

INDIE artist Beirut – AKA Zach Condon – has one of the most distinctive sounds in the whole of music.

Though born in Santa Fe in the United States, his primary influences are European, the music propelled by big, often mournful brass, with his 2006 debut album based on Balkan folk music.

A career-spanning compilation of b-sides, outtakes and unreleased tracks, Artifacts is an absolute treasure trove for Beirut fans. He was clearly something of a child prodigy, with some impressive bedroom-recorded tracks included from his mid-teens. Interestingly, his vocals on Hot Air Balloon sounds a lot like Thom Yorke at his most gloomy, while Fyodor Dormat highlights his early passion for synthesisers.

With childhood injuries forcing Condon to ignore the guitar, he ends up playing the trumpet, a Wurlitzer and a Farfisa (an Italian electronic organ).

An eccentric musical triumph.

Anais Mitchell
Anais Mitchell
(BMG)
★★★★

NINE years is a long time to wait for a new album but US indie folk star Anais Mitchell has some good excuses: her 2010 Hadestown concept record was transformed into a Broadway show and in 2019 she formed the critically acclaimed band Bonnie Light Horseman.

Her new self-titled set is another huge triumph for the Vermont native, bringing to mind confessional singer-songwriters of the ’90s like Ani Difranco and Jewel.

She is a great storyteller with a unique voice and a brilliant turn of phrase. Single Bright Star finds her looking back on restless years chasing her muse, while Backroads tells of coming of age in small town America, conjuring up a Dazed and Confused-style end of school narrative.

Compelling, romantic and deeply affecting, the album is going to end up meaning a helluva lot to lots of people.