John Murph

If there's a genre called electronica blues, Belleruche's "Shudder and Cry" epitomizes it. DJ Modest's serrated digital beats recall a chain-gang rhythm, while Kathrin deBoer's quivering soprano accentuates the blues flavor as she sings about a wanderer's lost soul. In between, Ricky Fabulous sneaks in suitably spidery guitar licks.

Souza's vivacious "Protegid" cranks up its tempo, slices up its syncopated rhythm to resemble Thelonious Monk's "Evidence" and allows the singer to power her voice with the assured intuition and inventiveness of a jazz singer.

Melding jazz with electronica may be a dicey proposition, but when the combination is executed as deftly as it is on James' "Detroit Loveletter," the result can be smart and sexy. The song's producer, Moodymann, is based in the titular city, and he's long had a knack for incorporating that town's multifaceted musical legacy into soul-stirring deep house.

The aphorism "Action speaks louder than words" comes across loud and clear on Wunmi's pulsating "Talk Talk Talk," on which the Afrobeat singer takes on world leaders who mull over global issues when they could be solving them.

Marva Whitney, who sang with the James Brown Revue in the late '60s and early '70s, took three decades to release a new album. Her new cover of Brenda Holloway's "Every Little Bit Hurts" hints at a rebuke of a music industry that turned its back on her when she and Brown parted ways.

The boisterous, California-based acid-jazz collective Greyboy Allstars delves deep into vintage soul on "How Glad I Am." Drawing on a snazzy groove, chicken-scratch guitar riffs and fatback horns, the song brings to mind the loose funk of Charles Wright's 103rd Street Rhythm Band.

Love seldom comes easy in Macy Gray's ballads. Betrayal, abandonment and even physical violence often pepper her songs, as she offers vivid accounts of love affairs that sometimes seem too real for comfort. On "Strange Behavior," she dives into a lurid melodrama.

By the time 1974's Small Talk came out, Stone was viewed as a has-been — a young, brilliant innovator burnt out by drugs and megalomania. A fresh visit to Small Talk, though, counters that assessment, as evidenced by the wry "Wishful Thinkin'."

Funerals celebrate life as much as they mourn the departed, and Robert Glasper's poignant requiem "Tribute" — assembled in honor of his mother — makes no secret of that. Glasper and his bandmates initiate a plaintive piano-trio hymn that soon underscores Rev. Joe Ratliff's poetic eulogy.

Lyrically, 4Hero's "Morning Child" hearkens back to early-'70s "Age of Aquarius" sentiments, as guest vocalist Carina Andersson expounds on the joys of being an infant. When channeling a voice as incandescent as Riperton's, sanguinity is almost guaranteed.