As the album’s opening lyrics go: “When everything else fails, Black endures.I was turned on to the genre-splicing British music collective Sault in the Summer of 2020 during the protests against police violence that were organized across the globe.

And what a legacy they had to choose from. One of the greatest compliments you can pay Sault’s work is that it sounds like what has come before: not derivative of, but complementary to its forebears. I’d argue this is timeless music that continues the tradition of Black rebel sounds that started in Africa, were honed in the Caribbean and packaged for the world as soul, R&B and funk in the US. It could have come at any period in the last 30 years: the sounds have existed and so have the stories that inspired the lyrics. In a way there’s nothing timely about Sault’s work. Untitled (Black Is) places you on that ride: well-aware of its lineage and capable of luxuriating in it.

Simon Reynolds’s theory of the hardcore continuum – the idea that British dance music has consistently drawn from a well of Black cultural influences while evolving into everything from drum’n’bass to British techno – characterises the movement as “a bumpy but exhilarating ride, but let no one doubt that it’s the same rollercoaster at every stage of the journey”. The album’s Juneteenth release date sent certain signals, but the music is our main clue as to their mindset. Only later was it revealed that the collective included Little Simz producer Inflo, London-based vocalist Cleo Sol, the Chicago rapper Kid Sister and guests such as Mercury prize-winner Michael Kiwanuka. (The second, Untitled (Rise), came in at No 25 in our list.) Their motivations are opaque: the music tends to arrive with little more than a day’s notice and no information regarding the band’s members. No one knows whether Sault were asking themselves that question when they made Untitled (Black Is), the first of two incredible albums they put out this year. He argued that there is “something demeaning about approaching art from a predetermined angle”, and that increasingly artists are being asked if their work is timely and therefore of importance. I n a recent essay for Harper’s magazine the author Garth Greenwell wrote about his problem with creating work that is described as “relevant”.

Sault bandcamp