It's quite possible the best album of 2020 came out three days ago "out of thin air, and with little information." UNTITLED (BLACK IS) is the third album in 13 months by SAULT, a co-ed London neo-soul/funk/plus band about which pretty much nothing is officially known. It's a stripped-down 20-song Black Lives Matter concept album that has lots of drum-machine soul, plenty of chanting, a little Afrobeat, a touch of gospel and a moment of doo-wop, and which frames its considerable anger and pain inside the spiritual optimism of declarations like "We will never show fear / Even in my eyes / I will always rise / In wildfires." Also responsible for much of the framing: one of the most affecting female voices of this moment. It's hard to tell if the heart of the album is the phrase "Stop dem!" shouted angrily, almost desperately, three times in a row at the end of the song of the same name, or the almost romantically cooed "Black is so warm and pure / And when all else fails, Black endures" that ends the opening track. Probably both. The full album could have been recorded entirely in the past month, or in the past year; it's not as if the issues the album is speaking to popped out of nowhere this spring. For all the minimalism of the arrangements, the songwriting and production are perfectly conceived and detailed, sometimes with a throwback vibe that earns that "neo" tag. There's an alternate universe somewhere where like 12 of these 20 songs are singles. I have no idea how big that alternate universe is, maybe it's about the size of an Autonomous Zone in the Pacific Northwest, maybe it's a corner of TWITTER or BANDCAMP, maybe, hopefully, it could actually be this universe. You can download "Untitled (Black Is)" for free from the band here or buy it here or stream it at all the usual places... And yes, speaking of three days ago, that BOB DYLAN album is an A-plus late-career gift... And here's to BEYONCÉ surprise drops—and black-owned business directories... This TERRACE MARTIN quote was my quote of the day a week ago and I'm still thinking about it a lot: "For those that aren't reflecting the times, my job is not to question their artistry, but I question their being, and why they're doing this for a living"... RIP TRAY SAVAGE.