A fizzing catherine wheel of guitar talent, either in his own bands like the raging Ceramic Dogs or in cahoots with visionaries like Mary Halvorson and John Zorn, Ribot needs no introduction. But nothing prepares us for Map of a Blue City. This is Ribot the singer/songwriter. Much of the material is garnered from Ribot’s home recordings of the last 30 years, or from an unfinished project by Ribot’s friend Hal Wilner. Even Wilner felt the material was too dark to put out. But with the light dimming across the world, the darkness of Map of a Blue City shines bright.

The Map’s roots/routes are manifold. There are echoes of Rick Rubin’s recordings with Johnny Cash, almost explicitly in Ribot’s biblically intense take on the Carter family’s ‘When the World’s on Fire’. Hank Williams, South American protest song, Ry Cooder in three chords and the truth mode, all are here, as is Ribot’s sense of his Jewish heritage, part realised in a passionate reading of Ginsberg’s ‘Sometime Jailhouse Blues’. The guitar work, lo fi, sparing, is of course superb, notably on the Ginsberg.

But the closer is the killer: ‘Optimism of the Spirit’ is a steel grinder wall of noise. It threatens to engulf all the fragile beauty that’s gone before. Beyond jazz, steeped in humanity… an album of the year.