Ben Marc is a bassist, electronic producer and composer and the nom de plume of Neil Charles: a graduate of Trinity and Tomorrow’s Warriors, leader of his new Dark Days project and a regular sideman with a plethora of jazz, classical and contemporary ensembles and others in between. Glass Effect, his solo debut on the LA-based Innovative Leisure label, is titled to address the penchant for pigeonholing black musicians and celebrate a boundaries-down aesthetic that spans collaborations with Soweto Kinch, Johnny Greenwood and Mulatu Astatke.

From the off, Glass Effect feels exciting, box fresh. Deep electronic jams are at a premium, their fragmented rhythms glitching and juddering, framing sonic tapestries inside of which, on opener ‘The Way We Are’, string arrangements and folky guitar licks bob and weave with heavy basslines.

Elsewhere, chimes prettify, reverb echoes and sounds are layered, cut-and-pasted; compositions are imbued with tension and release and, on the brass-led ‘Dark Clouds’ – featuring a spoken word musing on Black/Black British resilience – righteous fury. There’s beauty to be had, too: on the summery, psychedelic ‘Straight No Chasing’; the sumptuous ‘Give Me Time’, with its strings, handclaps and Judi Jackson’s to-die-for vocals; and music-box-like closer ‘Make My Way’, led by xylophone-and-guitar and infused with hope. A vital new voice.