Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In another life, Michael Kiwanuka might have been just another retro-singer paying smooth tribute to a bygone era of dusty analogue grooves. That was where the former session guitarist seemed to be going after his rapid ascent over a decade ago, supporting Adele on tour and beating Frank Ocean in an annual BBC poll of rising names in 2012. “I know where I’m headed,” the London-raised singer-songwriter sang on his well-received debut Home Again, “I know where I belong.” But a scrapped follow-up album indicated dissatisfaction with the throwback-soul corner into which he was painting himself. In 2016, he released to acclaim Love & Hate. It featured input from two producers who have a keen feeling for the tension between honouring past sounds and recasting them for present purposes: Dean “Inflo” Cover, leader of musical collective Sault, and Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton.Both rejoin Kiwanuka for his fourth album Small Changes. It arrives five years after its Mercury Prize-winning predecessor, Kiwanuka. In that time, the singer-songwriter has been occupied with domestic life, becoming a father to two children. His new songs have a calming glow, all rich ambers and mellow introspection. Stylistic touchstones such as Bill Withers, evident in the rounded warmth of Kiwanuka’s voice, are much the same as before. But the music is familiar in a deeper sense: it burrows into the sound that Kiwanuka has made for himself.“Floating Parade” sets unhurried vocals against faster rhythms, as though the singer were finding his own pace amid the turning of the world. The bassline is reminiscent of the reimagined lounge music of Air’s Moon Safari, at once sophisticated and homely. The title track sets verses about self-improvement to the comforting pulse of an electric organ and evocative interplay between vocal melody and an echoing guitar solo. “Lowdown (part i)” opens with appealingly sleepy riffs and drifts into a dreamland of keyboard vamps, oohing-and-aahing backing vocalists and intricate drum patterns. We are in the heightened realm of fantasy here, not the mechanical copies of retro-music.★★★★☆‘Small Changes’ is released by Polydor
