Hotep vinyl

While Dean Blunt might be half way round the world gigging or getting in touch with local cultures, his excellent World Music is still officially based in London's Hackney, what many would refer to as the home of his creative run since the late noughties. He returns with under a cameo role, however, alongside the rest of his new LA crew. Together, they are known as Blue Iversion. Hotep is their debut LP, and the vinyl version comes courtesy of Deviation, unsurprisingly. The mood is jazzy but the finer details of this album are wrapped in a distinctive electronic glow, permeating every track on here, from the cool broken beats of "Soulseek" to the euphoric bursts of chords heard on "Nappytex", and the magnificently Rhodes-led ballad called "Fake Loathe". "Hush Money" is our favourite piece, a funky little jam with plenty of soul and melancholia at its core, while "Kerosene SkunkFunk" has Blunt's sticky stench all over it, and "Who Shot Luscious Lyon" provides a magnetic burst of acoustic guitars as a final bullet.

Tomasz Guiddo