By Will McGuirk

Fazer, on ‘Plex’, their third album, manage to hold the centre even as elements take flight. The German group tie all the jazz meanderings to a core held in place by their rhythm section. While the restraint can be binding the results are spellbinding - there is something to be said for returning home again before taking off again.

Holy Hive are OG Dap-tones drummer Homer Steinweiss and singer-songwriter Paul Spring. Their self-titled album is what the Brooklyn duo term Folk Soul. The folk and the soul in question are not a marriage between the rural and the urban traditions of America but the two draw from a diverse global base and a soul which is as local as each of us.

Silas Short blends soul and jazz on his debut ‘ Drawing’ - a gathering of lockdown conversations with himself laid over some deft grooves and a voice with a drop like a waterfall. Something of Bahamas and also Daniel Caesar to this 24 year old resident of Milwaukee.

Aussies Haiku Hands may be what one could get if Peaches had joined the Spice Girls, less Wannabe, more WAP.