Lady Blackbird

Named after one of Nina Simone’s starkest tunes, Los Angeles-based singer Marley Munroe isn’t the Nina Simone of the Black Lives Matter era (she certainly wouldn’t call herself that). But she is the talent, and the force-of-nature, and the talk-walking personality, that Gilles Peterson has dubbed “the Grace Jones of jazz” – an accolade reinforced by the remixes of recent single ‘collage’ by jazz and house heavyweights Bruise, Greg Foat and KDA.

Minimal yet rich, classic yet timely, her new LP Black Acid Soul connects backwards to Miles Davis (his pianist, Deron Johnson, plays Steinway baby grand, mellotron and Casio synth throughout) and forwards to Pete Tong (he made the bruise mix of ‘collage’ his number two essential selection tune of 2020) and, yes, Victoria Beckham – Matthew Herbert’s remix of second single ‘Beware the Stranger’ soundtracked the designer’s spring/summer 2020 fashion show.