Little Simz clearly believes in meeting situations head on. Her sixth full-length album kicks off, in every sense of the phrase, with “Thief”: unambiguously a lyrical barrage at her childhood friend and frequent collaborator Inflo, who Simz is currently suing for alleged failure to repay £1.7 million in loans for ambitious recording and performance projects.

Sometimes magic really can’t be recreated. However hard it’s strived for.

Rapper, actor and occasional media celebrity, Ice-T’s heavy metal band, Body Count have been around since the early ‘90s and have turned out some fine albums along the way – most notably their self-titled debut and 2014’s Manslaughter. Unfortunately, their latest offering, Merciless is unlikely to be viewed as a career high point, as it sees Ice and his buddies hit a musical dead end with some considerable force.

This album only has one serious flaw: LL COOL J didn’t open it with “OK you can call it a comeback”. Sorry, cheap joke (if you didn’t know, his classic hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” starts with the lyric “Don’t call it a comeback!” and this, his 14th album, is his first in 11 years).

A few recent documentaries have challenged the definition of the genre through the cheerful and wholesale dramatic reconstruction of past events, key moments that weren’t captured by a camera at the time.

The weather is perfect. Rare at a festival in this country. The sun shines. Occasional clouds pass. There’s a light breeze. Flamingods are on the Charlie Gillett stage. They are a London-based unit of primarily Bahraini origin who make psychedelic-electronic rock tinged with exotica and Middle Eastern flavour. Very WOMAD, in other words.

Joe Goddard’s torrent of creativity rarely fails to amaze. As well as eight albums as a crucial part of Hot Chip, he has made two in the 2 Bears duo with Raf Rundell, one as Hard Feelings with Amy Douglas, and there’s been various other collaborations besides (A Pulse Train, Extra Credit, Greco-Roman Soundsystem, Lightbox Of Magic Unknowledge), not to mention dozens of remixes and a none too shabby DJ career too.

The noise in the international mainstream in recent years might be about dance-pop, hip hop beefs and the serious balladry of Taylor, Billie and Lana – yet at the same time, R&B has been strange, brilliant, ultra-popular, but generated a tiny fraction of the column inches and “discourse”.

In 2023 Dave and Central Cee had the longest running number one UK rap song ever with "Sprinter", a song about the logistics of being very rich. The real star of the show, however, was the spritely, luxurious instrumental which was partially produced by South Londoner Jim Legxacy, who also released the best album of 2023: HNPM.

It was a year of bleak and brutal conflict, ugly and stupid imposition of power, overt Fascism in the mainstream public sphere, decay of infrastructure and apocalyptic weather. So what better than a record of total pleasure? And Janelle Monáe’s fourth album in 13 years really does do exactly what it says on the tin, in every possible ways. Over 14 songs in just 32 minutes, it positively glows with self-confidence, satsifaction, in-the-moment joy, and deeply felt sensualism.