Jack White isn’t one to shy away from a challenge. Whether it’s launching a record player into space to play Carl Sagan’s “A Glorious Dawn”, or embarking on seemingly unlikely collaborations with Beyoncé or hip hop act A Tribe Called Quest, he seems to be a game sort. It’s this ambition (with a small "a" – for "artistic") that we see writ large over Boarding House Reach, his third solo LP and the first he’s released in four years.

The packed crowd at the Jazz Café was fired up by a sizzling samba soul band led by Kita Steuer on bass and vocals, singing along to a production line of hits, complete with dynamic brass section and superior percussion. All songs by a singular Brazilian artist, Tim Maia, who died 20 years ago and whose music was being celebrated.

In the seven years since N.E.R.D last had an album out, Pharrell Williams’ profile, which was already massive, has achieved some sort of pop supernova. “Happy”, “Get Lucky” and the less loveable “Blurred Lines” have made him a megastar. He now returns with Chad Hugo, his childhood pal and production partner in one of hip hop’s defining production units, The Neptunes, and their reclusive associate Shay Haley. N.E.R.D’s original remit, when they began a decade-and-a-half ago, was to make their own R&B-marinated version of rock, but their fifth album sees raw electronic funk to the fore

A truckload of special guests adds to the sense of occasion. Rihanna kicks things off with opener and first single “Lemon”, a propulsive electro-percussive banger which sets the tone, but the best collaboration is with Kendrick Lamar and M.I.A. on the album’s most exciting track, “Kites”, an Afro-chanting, whooping, bass-built thing, both stark and busy. Elsewhere Gucci Mane and Wale boost the Outkast-style groove of “Voila”, which has a fantastically bizarre steel band mid-section, while, by contrast, Andre 3000 of Outkast drops in on the robotised hammerings of “Rollinem 7’s”.

Even Ed Sheeran doesn’t disgrace himself, with his cameo on closer “Lifting You” only aiding a likeable digital dancehall bubbler that celebrates nightworld hedonism. However, N.E.R.D don’t need guests to thrill, as they prove on the sampledelic electro-rave pulse of “Secret Life of Tigers” and the Prince-flavoured epic “Don’t Don’t Do It”, as well as much else. Lyrically it’s all a bit opaque. Perhaps, for instance, they are opining obliquely on the state of the US on “1000”. But, equally, perhaps not. It doesn’t matter because No_One Ever Really Dies is primarily a sonic, felt experience.

N.E.R.D have moved on from even hints of organic funkiness, such as “Hot-n-Fun” from their last album, replacing it with crunchy, poppy, clubland experimentalism, deeply indebted to hip hop, placing them beside Gorillaz, with a touch of Gnarls Barkley’s more outré output. It’s no bad place to be and the new album is a feisty, exciting creature, full of wriggle and body-movement.

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Overleaf: watch the video for "Lemon" by N.E.R.D featuring Rihanna

Not since the 1960s has there been so much global shit to protest about! The Sixties, of course, gave us the protest song – and how well the best of them have worn. “Masters of War” and “With God On Our Side” are timeless classics. “Give Peace a Chance” can still be heard from the barricades.

Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.

SIMPLY THE BEST: THEARTSDESK'S FIVE-STAR REVIEWS OF 2017

Alan Broadbent: Developing Story ★★★★★  The pianist's orchestral magnum opus is packed with extraordinary things

For those who are unsure of Bootsy Collins’ place in the funk pantheon, he is the bassman who put the One into James Brown’s “Sex Machine”, “Soul Power” and “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing”, as well as everything that came out of the first ten years of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. Suffice it to say that Bootsy Collins is a funk colossus and, along with Clinton, one of the architects of P-funk: that sweet spot where Jimi Hendrix gets down with James Brown and they party for all they’re worth.

It was this album's good fortune to arrive on a miserable rainy afternoon. At other times my first impressions might be a bit harsher about its comfortable, retro dad-grooves and easily flowing sax solos, but instead I let it wrap me like a blanket, and by three tracks in it was absolutely impossible to dislike it.

With the wind behind them, the San Francisco-founded band Deerhoof are one of the greatest live experiences you can have.

We are living, I think it’s fair to say, in troubled times. That is, if we’re living at all by the time of publication. Putting aside, for a second, the sabre-rattling of two monstrous egos, there is a need, in such dark days, of some light. Thankfully, Hard Lines, the third album from British pop act Lucky Soul shines with the force and intensity of the Sun – admittedly still not as hot as an exploding thermonuclear warhead, but let’s work with what we have.

Staff Benda Bilili and Kasai Allstars redefined the sound of Congolese dance music: the supremacy of the Rumba popularised by Franco and others, with its cascading guitar solos and instantly recognisable beats, was replaced by a host of other rhythms, closer to the intense vitality of the area’s rich traditions.