The third album from UK singer/songwriter Michael Kiwanuka was produced by US producer Danger Mouse and the UK’s Inflo, who together have amassed an impressive and influential discography. No doubt there are old school influences at play here — Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, Burt Bacharach for starters — but this is no retro-soul pastiche. Kiwanuka is a highly original and affecting album, moving effortlessly from psychedelic soul to acoustic guitar ballads. Sometimes stark and intimate, at other points rich with orchestration, this is a unique, bold and highly enjoyable album that happily pushed at the boundaries of what soul music could be.

– Harold Heath