Album Review: Small Changes by Michael Kiwanuka

Mercury Prize recipient Michael Kiwanuka, Sault's resident maestro Inflo and the inimitable Danger Mouse reunite on Kiwanuka's fourth album, Small Changes. The album angles to circumvent the temporal; a confident stride in classic songwriting and craftsmanship that gives way to yet another example of Kiwanuka and his collaborators upping their creative ante. Unlike Kiwanuka, Small Changes gives pause to the tempo found on those punctuated moments of its predecessor - You Ain't the Problem; Hero - for the amber glow of Sade on the title track and Rebel Soul.

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Although the arrangements include elements (strings, massed voices) that usually indicate epic aspirations painted on the widest possible canvas, the album utilises these ingredients sparingly. The default setting here is, well, smaller, and certainly more lowkey and intimate, than the psychedelically tinged orchestrations of 2019's masterful Kiwanuka. Throughout Small Changes, the focus remains unstintingly on the singer - and most of all the songs.

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