Black music has a long history of experiments in sound and this engrossing new collaborative trio makes a significant addition to it. Nite Bjuti was initially born when vocalist Candice Hoyes invited electronicist-turntablist Val Jeanty to accompany her at an Afrofuturism concert at Jazz At Lincoln Center in 2018. The duo then carried on their partnership on studio jams and invited bassist Mimi Jones to turn two into three.

The resulting equation works. Much of the material on this eponymous debut feels like a single fertile melodic or rhythmic idea that is allowed to grow in all manner of unexpected ways that reflect profound Caribbean folklore and ritual in creative collision with technology that does not have the rigidity or bloodlessness of much contemporary digital production. The glorious ‘Mood (Liberation Walk)’, with its bottle-like percussive ring and purring bass ostinatos is a case in point, as the criss-cross rhythms weave around the vocals like threads on a bending wire, making the music deeply sensual and deliciously spiky. With drums and handclaps landing in odd places and tempos going through subtle shifts on this and other pieces the music has a fascinating musical-cultural identity that is as non-western as western, standing in a diverse lineage that might include Hu Vibrational, Meshell Ndegeocello and Sally Nyolo. Lastly, engineer Amon Drum and mixer Tyler McDiarmid deserve props for a very polished but earthy sound.

Shapeshifting work from a group that is pleasingly hard to pin down, creating its own unique world by stealthily moving between many.