When Kimmi Bitter released her last album Old School it seemed like classic country was the future of country music, and Kimmi Bitter was the future of classic country. From California, Bitter takes the old school sounds of Patsy Cline and Nancy Sinatra and spices them with surf sounds and a distinctly mod aesthetic.
Now she’s back with Bittersweet, an album steeped in the sounds of the 1960s. Bitter’s sultry vocals deliver timeless stories of love and heartache, while the arrangements feature reverb-drenched guitars, pedal steel, calypso beats and vibraphone textures played on a Mellotron. The result is an album that feels less like a 2026 release than a rediscovered record from another era—one that somehow sounds right at home today.
For more retro-sounds this week, it's the sophomore release by UK-based soul and R&B singer Jalen Ngonda — Doctrine of Love. Released on the Daptone label, known for recreating the Motown sound with artists like Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley, and Thee Sacred Souls, Doctrine of Love avoids sounding derivative with its authenticity. Lush strings and soaring horns provide a perfect canvas for Ngonda's raspy falsetto, which has been compared to Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson.
One of the artists I’ve come to love over the past decade is Michael Kiwanuka. His breakthrough album, Love & Hate, arrived in 2016, debuting at No. 1 on the UK charts and earning nominations for both the Mercury Prize and a BRIT Award that year.
Around the same time, Kiwanuka recorded Live in Session at RAK Studios, a stripped-down live performance released as a YouTube project. The session found an audience far beyond the original release, eventually racking up over 170 million views.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Love & Hate, Geffen has released a four-track audio EP drawn from the session. It includes the full, just-over-11-minute version of Cold Little Heart, along with Love & Hate, Rule the World, and The Final Frame.
From the opening synthesizer notes of Cold Little Heart—which recall Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond—it’s immediately apparent that, despite the album’s plush production, these songs were made to be played live. The RAK session strips away some of that studio polish and lets Kiwanuka’s voice, guitar, and the underlying groove take center stage.
Listen to Open Air for tracks from these albums and more - weekdays 9am-3pm on JPR's Rhythm and News Service.
