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Throughout, there are echoes of Alice Coltrane’s string-laden spiritual epic World Galaxy and of McCoy Tyner’s under-appreciated excursion into choral jazz, Inner Voices. More pointedly, Air harks back to a certain visionary era of Black music. Elements of minimalism and contemporary classical surface, as do African and eastern influences – in particular, the electric interplay between orchestra, chants and strummed and plucked stringed instruments on Luos Higher. Unabashedly widescreen and cinematic, Air’s gracefully expressive symphonies and bold use of the choir-as-instrument suggest classic scores by Herrmann and Morricone, its dramas writ larger-than-life. Fittingly, the total volte-face of Air feels like the work of an artist who, having proved themselves within the pop realm, decides it’s time to pursue their grandest visions. Better known as Inflo, the producer of award-winning albums by Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz, Cover will probably live comfortably off his contributions to Adele’s 30 for the rest of his years. Though notorious for their love of mystery, it is now generally known that Sault are led by Dean Josiah Cover. The startling and often brilliant sixth album from Sault is a similarly daring act of creative rebirth, swapping out the kaleidoscopic, razor-sharp funk/soul/rap/dub/whatever of their previous boundary-breaking work for an entirely new and unexpected paradigm. N ot until you’ve listened to Rakim on a rocky mountaintop / Have you heard hip-hop,” mused poet/MC Saul Williams on his landmark 1998 polemic Twice the First Time, relocating the art form from the urban context that birthed it and challenging us to reconsider its possibilities.