MICHAEL KIWANUKA Kiwanuka (Universal) On his first two albums, Michael Kiwanuka reached into the inquisitive and easy-riding soulful side of the 1970s, and then the rightfully and righteously angry flipside: a man not quite in any one place physically or spiritually but on the search. Each style had a place, and each in their own way reflected his time and state of mind as much as the decade whose music it drew on. Their stories were practically told in their titles, Home Aga

MICHAEL KIWANUKA Oxford Art Factory, April 19 Looked at one way, Michael Kiwanuka makes no sense. A man who can sound like Bill Withers and Randy Newman, who is English but feels Californian, who hits mellow mostly on matters romantic and yet packs a lyrical punch on issues racial. A man who begins the night with a perfect mid period Pink Floyd-style instrumental: languorous guitar explorations over keyboard washes, slow build as the other instruments arrive, and a dreamy psy

The best songs of the year were all over the shop as numbers 11-20 showed, and numbers 1 to 10 are no different. Brandy Clark tops the list with something sharp and punchy (and closes the list with something sad but potent, if you remember) which sounds nothing like the pulse-and-sooth of Underworld or the Indo-Australian hip hop melange of L-Fresh The Lion. Clark is not the only country act on the list but at this end of the table she’s sharing space with the liquid R&B of D