Tracey Thorn’s slinky Sister track never wears out its welcome

TRACEY THORN “RECORD” (MERGE)

“Oh, what year is it? Still arguing the same s-t.” Tracey Thorn is 55 years old, old enough to have lived through several ebbs and flows in modern feminism. She calls her fifth solo album a collection of “feminist bangers,” and while it’s not quite likely to set dance floors on fire — in ways that “Missing,” her smash 1995 single with Everything But the Girl managed to do — it more than lives up to the first half of her descriptor. “I am my mother / I am my sister / And I fight like a girl,” she sings on one of the album’s many highlights.

Thorn retired her long-running band Everything But the Girl in 2000 (after giving birth to twin girls, ironically enough). Her solo work since then has largely consisted of downtempo piano ballads and modern folk songs, which perfectly underscore her untouchable lyrical mastery in depicting midlife crises in well-executed character sketches — particularly on the piercing 2010 album “Love and Its Opposite,” which should be essential listening for any parent on the other side of 40.

This album finds her writing from a similar place — there is no mistaking that this is an album written from a certain vantage point in life — but musically she’s not acting her age, for better and worse. “Dancefloor” sounds exactly like an older person’s idea of modern dance music, and falls flat. But conversely, the nearly nine-minute “Sister” sounds perfect, a slinky groove featuring the rhythm section of Warpaint with Corinne Bailey Rae on backing vocals, which never wears out its welcome.

Whether they work or not — and they mostly do — the musical choices are part and parcel with the lyrics, Thorn told the Financial Times. “If 2010s “Love and Its Opposite” was my mid-life album,” she said, “full of divorce and hormones, then “Record” represents that sense of liberation that comes in the aftermath, from embarking on a whole new ‘no f-ks given’ phase of life.” As it should be.

Stream: “Queen,” “Sister,” “Babies”

KAE SUN “WHOEVER COMES KNOCKING” (MOONSHINE)

Kae Sun does not merely have an incredible voice, one that helped his 2013 song “The Ship and the Globe” rack up more than four million views on YouTube. He has a unique voice: one with a timbre and accent that sets him apart from everyone else in the pop sphere. It helps that his music also exists outside of genre: like the best pop music, it borrows freely from classic balladry, electronic music, reggae — all of which is almost secondary underneath the melodies he decorates with his vocal skills.

Kae Sun is the stage name for Kwaku Darko-Mensah Jr., who was born in Ghana and moved to Hamilton as a teenager. He now lives in Montreal, where the Pan-African enthusiasts of the Moonshine monthly DJ night have rallied to release his longawaited, third full-length album. Because of his ethnicity, Kae Sun often gets pigeonholed as “world music,” which makes about as much sense as Ruth B (“Peter Pan”) or The Weeknd getting the same designation because they’re Ethiopian-Canadian. Kae Sun makes pop music, pure and simple: ready-made for radio and better than most things on Top 40 today. The presence of multiplatinum Quebec star Ariane Moffatt might help him break down some doors in that province; the rest of Canada will have to take him on his own terms. Which shouldn’t be a problem with singles like “Treehouse” or “Stalk.”

“This house wasn’t built on rock ’n’ roll,” he sings in the opening line of the record, his voice running through a Leslie speaker to sound otherworldly. No, Kae Sun’s foundation is much sturdier than that. Though he started out as an acoustic guitarist, you’d be hard pressed to hear anything but electronic textures on “Whoever Come Knocking” — a synthetic makeover that doesn’t sacrifice his soul. The arrangements and grooves are solid, and with that voice front and centre, Kae Sun crosses all borders with ease.

Stream: “Treehouse,” “Stalk,” “Breaking”

CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON “STONE WOMAN” EP (INDEPENDENT)

This fiercely independent Torontonian has been poised for a breakthrough for a while, and it’s easy to see why: her rich, deep voice brings something different to modern R&B, where aiming for the vocal stratosphere is still a primary goal even in the more progressive strains of the genre. Wilson is chill and Canadian about what her voice can do: she lingers in her lower range and lets the listener luxuriate there. Like her friend Daniel Caesar, she’s also an antidote to the AutoTuned iciness of the so-called “Toronto sound” of Drake and The Weeknd; both she and Caesar are throwbacks to a time when raw talent was appreciated.

Wilson is a multi-instrumentalist who runs her own show, including producing and engineering duties. In a male-dominated industry, that’s something she’s justifiably proud of. Too bad, then, that all of these songs — and those on her debut EP — limp along with little life or direction, tilting toward the tedious. Her voice is great, the textures are lovely, the grooves are strong — yet she’s still missing a key ingredient. One hates to challenge the pride of a talented and politically motivated 25-year-old, but maybe the self-described “Stone Woman” who goes to a funeral “just to feel something” would benefit from some collaboration.

Stream: “Stone Woman,” “Falling Apart,” “Funeral”