2026-01 January | SunNeverSetsOnMusic

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CRIOLO, AMARO E DINO

CRIOLO, AMARO FREITAS, DINO D'SANTIAGO

Released 15 January 2026

Criolo Producoes

****-

A record shaped by collaboration and cultural inheritance, that confidently holds together across a wide musical vocabulary of influences.

Louis Matute is a Geneva born guitarist and composer whose work is closely tied to and influenced by migration, travel and ensemble playing. Leading his Large Ensemble, a collective of young Franco Swiss musicians, Matute has developed a sound that blends European jazz sensibilities with groove, Caribbean, rock and vintage textures. His surname derives from a Latin heritage that has become central to his music, shaped through extended time spent in Spain, Cuba, Costa Rica, Honduras and Brazil.

Dolce Vita was recorded in March 2025 at La Frette Studios outside Paris - a space known for its rock music pedigree - and completed in Brazil, bringing together long standing Large Ensemble collaborators, alongside guest vocalists Joyce Moreno, Dora Morelenbaum, Gabi Hartmann and Rico TK.

This is an album grounded in place. It carries a lived-in warmth that suits Matute’s writing. The Large Ensemble provides a flexible core, with Nathan Vandenbulcke’s drumming giving the music much of its propulsion and elasticity. His playing anchors tracks that move easily between groove-driven passages and more open jazz forms.

Specific voices shape the album’s identity. Zacharie Ksyk’s trumpet brings bite and urgency, particularly on Tegucigalpa 72, while Léon Phal’s tenor saxophone adds a darker, smouldering tone elsewhere. The presence of Brazilian singers Joyce Moreno and Dora Morelenbaum deepen the album’s connection to Brazil, reinforcing Matute’s ongoing dialogue with Latin American music.

What holds the record together is commitment of all the players involved, allowing the various influences to coexist without flattening into fusion. The result is expansive but coherent, personal without becoming inward.

Dolce Vita is a confident and generous album that captures Louis Matute at a point where ambition and clarity meet, producing music that feels both exploratory and fully inhabited.

Louis Mutate Home Page

Anagnorisis

DWIKI DHARMAWAN, GILAD ATZMON

Released 16 January 2026

Moonjune Music

****-

A genuinely international collaboration rooted in Indonesian musical thought that unfolds with a shared trust, clarity of purpose.

Dwiki Dharmawan is one of Indonesia’s most respected contemporary musicians, an artist used to moving between popular and serious music while carrying the melodic and rhythmic complexity of the Indonesian archipelago into global contexts. Celebrated in those islands for bridging traditional and modern, he has increasingly embraced the role of cultural ambassador abroad - a role that is made explicit on Anagnorisis, partly supported by the Indonesian Embassy in Athens.

His musical journey includes numerous expansive projects and collaborations with musicians from disparate cultures, typically to the enrichment of all parties.

Anagnorisis (Greek for “recognition”) is built around the idea of mutual understanding. It brings Dharmawan together with Israeli-born saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and a quartet of Greek musicians, forming what the Bandcamp text describes as “a meta-music of depth, beauty, and vitality that transcends mere collage”. Despite the international lineup and multiple production hands involved, the music never sounds assembled for effect. Instead, it unfolds with ease, reflecting “an inherent mutual trust and deep respect for one another as both people and musicians”.

Indonesian musical thinking anchors the album throughout. On “Gambang Ney,” Near Eastern flute timbres stand in for Southeast Asian counterparts, while “Pacu Javi” draws on rhythmic subdivision and acceleration associated with classical gamelan practice. Elsewhere, the mood shifts fluidly: “Perjuangan” moves with a pastoral calm that “evokes memories of the late ECM piano master John Taylor”, while “Jazz For Freeport” leans into rambunctious free-bop energy.

Even in the freely improvised “Ya Kita Bisa,” the emphasis remains collective rather than virtuosic. As the Bandcamp notes stress, “no single player dominates”. The album’s strength lies in how attentively its voices listen, respond and align.

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Fly Before You Buy

LOPHAE

Released 9 January 2026

Gregory J E Sanders

****-

A playful and self aware continuation of a fast moving creative run. The surprise is how reflection emerges without slowing the pace.

Imagine More

LOPHAE

Released 3 October 2025

Gregory J E Sanders

****-

A warmer and more focused second chapter shaped by familiarity and trust. What deepens the impact is how affection replaces uncertainty without losing spontaneity.

Perfect Strangers

LOPHAE

Released 24 January 2025

Gregory J E Sanders

****-

An unguarded debut rooted in immediacy and shared space. Its surprise lies in how quickly strangers begin to sound like confidants.

LOPHAE (pronounced “low-fi”) is a prolific UK based collective - a supergroup of sorts - that draws upon a broad spectrum of influences and sensibilities, operating at the intersection of lo-fi aesthetics, jazz and indie songcraft.

Featuring the unmistakable compositions of guitarist and bandleader Greg Sanders, the core group includes drummer Ben Brown, bass player Tom Herbert and saxophonist Sam Rapley, four uniquely expressive and sensitive improvisers.

Their Bandcamp profiles set it out:

Sanders – known for his work with Juanita Euka and Teotima – brings a unique aesthetic and an unmistakable feel to every musical setting he appears in. His writing and playing combine melodic elegance with rhythmic complexity, and provide a lush foundation for improvisation and dialogue. He also has a tried and tested talent for bringing together specific constellations of extraordinary musicians to interpret his original music.

Drummer Ben Brown, who brings wide-reaching rhythm expertise, honed while performing with Ethio-Jazz legend Mulatu Astatke and leading his own group Waaju. Brown’s intricate playing propels the band with absolute confidence and fierce energy.

Bass player Tom Herbert, who is a mainstay of the UK jazz scene, known for his work with The Invisible, Polar Bear, London Brew and Acoustic Ladyland. Herbert is much in-demand for his unparalleled ability to ground any musical situation with his massive sound, beautiful tone, highly-tuned sensitivity and unceasing musical curiosity.

Saxophonist Sam Rapley, who possesses a lyrical flair and a relaxed mastery of his instrument in the vein of tenor giants such as Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins. Rapley weaves seamlessly between textural and melodic roles with understated skill and grace.

Emerging fully formed in 2025, their defining feature is their intuitive interaction as players, coupled with proficiency in output: two (or is it three?) albums released in the space of a year, each responding to the moment, yet complete unto itself.

LOPHAE’s music favours feel over intensity, but that's not at the expense of excellence or polish. Across these albums, we see a new ensemble emerge and coalesce with friendship, humour and camaraderie.

From its first moments, Perfect Strangers delivers compelling, danceable grooves, yet it is a record that will reward multiple listens and deep engagement. The inflections you hear will depend on the music you know and love, but this record is full of moments that will resonate, creating that feeling that you have indeed discovered rare and beautiful treasure.

A strong second album is always something to celebrate, the continuation of a joyful thing. The album is released under various titles (Spotify has a 6 track "To Friends" version and a 7 track "Fry Before You Buy" version, while Bandcamp sells an 8 track "Imagine More" version).

As Aodren Pecnard (of djolo.net ) writes, Lophae’s music, “tells the story of the obstinacy of Greg Sanders, who suffers from a chronic illness ME/CFS and refuses to keep quiet about the music he plays. (It’s a) work of resilience, in which every note becomes an act of belief.”

This music is one of Sanders’s ways of finding and making meaning against the low-level hum of absurdity in the background; and while the album as a whole (and the composition in particular) bristles with wry wit and deep intelligence, the joy abounds.

Father Mother Sister Brother Wikipedia

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Father Mother Sister Brother (Original Music From The Film)

JIM JARMUSCH & ANIKA

Released 14 November 2025

Sacred Bones Records

****-

An austere and quietly subversive soundtrack where atmosphere, intuition and voice fold an emotional envelope around family, memory and human frailty.

Jim Jarmusch has long treated music as an essential narrative force within his films, often composing or co creating soundtracks that blur the line between score and autonomous work. Like David Lynch with Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks) or Wim Wenders with Ry Cooder (Paris, Texas), Jarmusch approaches sound as mood-making and meaning, rather than as decoration. Anika, born Annika Henderson, is a hybrid artist whose work spans experimental electronics post punk dub and spoken word, marked by a confrontational intimacy and a voice that recalls Nico in its detached gravity. Their collaboration on Father Mother Sister Brother, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, brings together two artists united by restraint curiosity and a refusal to over explain.

The music for Father Mother Sister Brother functions less as a score than as an atmospheric presence. Built from improvisation texture and reduction, it inhabits the spaces that beyond the movie's dialogue, gestures and silences.

Much of the album emerges from loosely structured improvisations shaped into brief instrumental vignettes. Electric guitars are treated electronically and distant, Wurlitzer chords drift without resolution. Rhythms are subdued - suggested rather than highlighted.

Anika’s voice appears sparingly, its cool intimacy carrying an emotional weight disproportionate to its frequency. The covers of These Days (Jackson Browne) and Spooky (Bubby Buie & others / Dusty Springfield) stand apart, their clarity (and familiarity) in stark contrast to the remainder, all instrumental pieces. Consequently, they become emotional anchors, redefined by their newly-acquired minimalism and restraint.

This music neither explains nor comforts, but it observes. Like the film itself, it is funny tender and quietly unsparing.

The Solastalgia Suite

KRIS DAVIS AND THE LUTOSLAWSKI QUARTET

Released 9 January 2026

Pyroclastic Records

****-

A contemporary jazz suite responding to ecological unease and collective anxiety. What surprises is how clarity and emotional directness emerge from music of such scale and conceptual weight.

Kris Davis is a Canadian born pianist composer and bandleader now based in New York, widely recognised as one of the most formidable creative voices in contemporary jazz and improvised music. Her work is distinguished by rhythmic acuity structural ambition and a willingness to engage with extra musical ideas without sacrificing musical integrity. Davis has written extensively for ensembles ranging from solo piano to large groups, often addressing social political and environmental themes through sound. As both composer and improviser, she balances intellectual rigor with visceral impact.

The Solastalgia Suite represents one of her most expansive compositional undertakings, drawing together a large ensemble to explore emotional responses to environmental loss and instability. Its name derives from a term describing the distress caused by environmental change close to home, and Davis treats this idea with seriousness rather than abstraction. The suite unfolds in distinct movements, each shaped by sharply etched ensemble writing and moments of improvisational release. Dense orchestration gives way to exposed passages where individual voices surface briefly, as if searching for footing.

Despite its scale, the music never feels overloaded. Davis’ writing is precise and purposeful, allowing complexity to serve expression rather than overwhelm it. Rhythms fracture and reassemble, harmonies tilt and stretch, yet there is a strong sense of forward motion throughout. The ensemble plays with urgency and commitment, conveying tension without theatrical excess.

What is most striking is the emotional clarity that emerges. Beneath the angularity and shifting forms lies a sustained human response: unease grief resolve and, occasionally, fragile hope. The suite does not offer solutions, but it articulates feeling with conviction and care.

This is an ambitious and deeply felt work; intellectually rigorous yet emotionally accessible, it confirms Kris Davis as a composer capable of translating complex contemporary realities into music that resonates beyond concept.

Dolce Vita

LOUIS MATUTE

Released 9 January 2026

naive / Association Encontro

****-

A record shaped by collaboration and cultural inheritance, that confidently holds together across a wide musical vocabulary of influences.

Dolce Vita is a confident and generous album that captures Louis Matute at a point where ambition and clarity meet, producing music that feels both exploratory and fully inhabited.

Louis Mutate Home Page

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Sendas

OMAR SOSA

Released 21 November 2025

Sosafunka Music

****-

A hushed, inward-looking piano meditation recorded early in the COVID pandemic, in which Sosa's gentle engagement of silence, voice and keyboard touch creates a language of resilience and prayer.

Omar Sosa is a Cuban-born pianist, composer and bandleader whose career has been defined by his fearless synthesis of musical styles and cultures - weaving Afro-Cuban, jazz, West African, Andean and contemporary improvised music into an ever-evolving personal language. Since relocating to Europe (now based in Barcelona), Sosa has continued to broaden his palette, collaborating with percussionists, vocalists and instrumentalists from diverse traditions.

"Sendas" ("Paths") is a heartfelt set of solo piano improvisations recorded at Fazioli Concert Hall in northern Italy in 2020 during the initial shock of the COVID pandemic. For Omar Sosa, with every stage silenced, the only way to release the tempest raging within was through the universal language of music. Each note became a sigh, a raw cry, a sincere prayer. Only art – that invisible and unbreakable bridge – offered an echo of our being that would resonate beyond the fragility of the present moment.

The music unfolds as a series of solo improvisations, sparse and unguarded. Sosa’s touch is intimate and deliberate. Melodies surface gently, often fragmentary, as if shaped by breath rather than bar lines. Occasional vocalisations and minimal percussion appear as extensions of the same expressive need, reinforcing the sense of music as bodily response. There is little overt drama here; instead the emotional weight accumulates through restraint and repetition.

Sendas is a fragile and moving document. Unhurried and stripped of all spectacle, it reveals Omar Sosa in communion with silence, memory and resilience, offering music as solace at a moment of global uncertainty.

FLUGEL

ANDRIS MATTSON

Released 2 January 2026

Sonar Music

****-

A warm and soulful exploration of the flugelhorn’s expressive potential , through the conjunction of mournful lyricism, nuance and technical experimentation.

"Combine the flugelhorn with the harmonic interface of an accordion"
That is what Mattson set out to do in the summer of 2025. And through much experimentation and trial and error, the "flucordion" was born. What followed was an extended period of exploration into the instrument’s harmonic and compositional possibilities.

Whereas previous records by Mattson (with more production heavy approaches) took many months or years to complete, FLUGEL was different. For him, the spirit of the flucordion has always been, at its core, a live, one-take instrument. Both the album and its accompanying short film (released on YouTube) were created with this ethos in mind.

FLUGEL (German for "wing") was recorded in Mattson’s living room over a few days in November 2025 and released a few weeks later.

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Back and Forth

RAHEL TALTS, ROB LUFT

DONATAS PETREIKIS, MARIUSZ PRAŚNIEWSKI, JESPER LØRUP

Released 28 November 2025

Rainbow Records

****-

An unforced and luminous exchange where a quintet led by piano and guitar moves with ease, curiosity and quiet joy through a shared melodic terrain.

Estonian pianist and composer Rahel Talts has emerged as a subtle and assured voice within contemporary jazz, valued for her melodic clarity rhythmic poise and openness to dialogue. Her work often privileges interaction over assertion, creating music that unfolds through responsiveness rather than display. UK Guitarist Rob Luft is widely recognised for his harmonic imagination and lyrical touch, bringing a flexible sensibility shaped by modern jazz folk influence and thoughtful improvisation. Supporting the pair in these recordings we round out the internationalist quintet with Donatas Petreikis (Latvia) - saxophone, Mariusz Praśniewski (Poland) - double bass and Jesper Lørup (Denmark) - drums.

Composed over a year and a half following Talts’ move from Denmark to Lithuania, the music reflects a period of personal change – looking back at the past with affection while embracing the unknown of what lies ahead.

Back and Forth places the two leading musicians in direct conversation, in a setting that is underpinned by trust and built around spontaneity and the sheer pleasure of an unadorned musical exchange.

But the overriding impression is of their ease together. From the opening moments, Talts and Luft sound entirely at home with one another, allowing ideas to pass naturally between piano and guitar without hierarchy or urgency. The music flows freely, shaped by a gentle internal momentum and the players' intuitive feel for balance.

Talts’ piano work is clean and melodic, repeatedly creating motifs that invite response. Luft answers with warmth and imagination, sometimes echoing ideas, sometimes nudging them sideways into new harmonic light. With the other three ensemble members' unobtrusive support, the interaction between all players feels playful and generous, driven by curiosity. It’s music that breathes easily and invites the listener to do the same.

Rahel Talts Home Page

Stephen Cummings Home Page

Joy (EP)

STEPHEN CUMMINGS

Released 21 November 2025

Cheersquad Records

****-

A short, satisfying set of deep-cut covers, delivered with a mix of determination and hope, in a character-filled, life-formed voice.

For many of us ("of a certain age"), Stephen Cummings has been a beloved musical presence for all our adult lives. Some of us were around for his formative years with the band-spawning stamping-ground The Pelaco Brothers, but he strutted into most of our consciousness on the airwaves, on 3RRR, and in Melbourne's inner city pubs and halls. He was the stylish one out in front of The Sports, urging "Don't Throw Stones" and ironically, pleading "Who Listens To The Radio" and singing "Reckless", "Boys! (What Did The Detective Say?)" and (my favourite of them all) "Cruisin' in a Citroen" - wherein he memorably rhymes "Bardot" and "radio".

Short-lived, the band produced four critically acclaimed albums in as many years, but commercial success failed to materialise in that overcrowded era of rising talents. Cummings' solo career followed, with release of "Senso" (1984) and about 20 more albums of a restless kind of singer-songwriter of R&B and three novels in the three decades that have followed.

Following a stroke while performing in March 2020, Cummings undertook rehabilitation and courageously returned to recording, releasing "100 Years From Now" in May 2023. In our review of the album we wrote, "The album is a collection of co-writes that put Cummings’ post-stroke physical condition to the fore, both musically and lyrically. The effect of Stephen’s stroke on his singing adds a layer of bittersweet heartbreak to his already emotive style."

"Joy" takes up where "100 Years..." left off, presenting fresh interpretations of four deep cuts from other Australian artists, songs originated and recorded at various times between 1971 and 2021 by Mike Rudd (Spectrum), Jess Ribeiro, Graeme Dunn & Jude McGee (Pel Mel), and Dusty Anastassiou (Dag).

These are songs that address the challenges and uncertainties that life throws our way. Their lyrics respond with a mix of determination and hope, delivered in a character-filled, life-formed voice: "Walking on the water Lying on the sand Living in the balance Placing my heart in my hands"... "Been feeling unwell, though in time I know I'm gonna be better"... "No word from China, no sign from the keeper I tried to sleep, excuses of mine"... Is this the land for which I’m seeking? Must I travel on? The answer lies within you Your searching must continue".

Long may you continue to do so Stephen Cummings - and so continue to inspire. Keep cruisin'.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

For Judy

LAUREN TSAMOURAS, TOM AVGENICOS

Released 7 November 2025

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

****-

A tender act of remembrance where reinterpretation becomes devotion and Judy Bailey’s singular musical voice is honoured through space listening and deeply felt restraint.

Lauren Tsamouras and Tom Avgenicos are both former students of the late Judy Bailey, one of Australian jazz’s most influential pianist composers and educators. Their musical partnership is grounded in attentiveness collaboration and an openness to reimagining form. Rather than approaching Bailey’s music as repertory, they treat it as living material open to reflection and transformation. For Judy grew out of a performance at Sydney’s Inner West Jazz Festival and was later realised as a studio recording commissioned by ABC Jazz. The album reflects not only Bailey’s compositional legacy but also the profound personal and artistic imprint she left on those she taught.

For Judy is shaped by memory, as Tsamouras and Avgenicos engage Judy Bailey’s compositions through electroacoustic reinterpretation, allowing her melodic and harmonic language to surface slowly and with reverence. The approach is spacious and immersive, placing emphasis on tone resonance and dialogue rather than forward motion.

Pieces such as The Calling and The Traveller are stretched and reweighted, their inner harmonies given room to breathe. Elsewhere, their interpretations of Colours Of My Dream and The Spritely Ones reveal Bailey’s distinctive blend of lyricism surprise and structural elegance. The duo format highlights the conversational nature of her writing, particularly on Two-Part Sketch where improvisation feels intimate and alive.

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INHABIT

SANDRAYATI

Released 5 September 2025

Decca Records

****-

A radiant, spiritually grounded debut in \which voice and ensemble playing combine to create music that feels both ancient and vividly present.

Sandrayati Fay, an artist of Filipino/Irish-American roots, was born and raised on the islands of Java and Bali Indonesia. Her songs are an expression of inspiration and perceptions that reflect her journeys and beliefs in the world revolving around human rights, identity and love.

INHABIT marks a major artistic statement: a project shaped by spiritual reflection cultural multiplicity and ensemble synergy rather than genre prescription. Her vocal approach, rooted in jazz and extended by technique, remains open to chant hymn and folk inflection, all of which gives the music an expansiveness that feels both intimate and cosmically oriented. Her collaborations with musicians across jazz and experimental scenes have positioned her as a distinctive contemporary voice, unafraid to explore meaning shape and community through sound.

INHABIT unfolds with gentle ritualistic motion, its musical language balancing lyricism with improvisational openness. The album places the voice at the centre not merely as a melodic instrument but as a textural and spiritual force, guiding ensemble colour and dynamic shape. Sandrayati’s phrasing draws on jazz tradition yet often ventures into extended vocal territory, creating lines that feel like invocation as much as song.

Instrumentation across the record is richly varied, often grounded in subtle rhythmic cycles and modal interplay. At times the ensemble folds into chant-like unison, at others it scatters into intimate solo gestures, but always the music feels cohesive, moving with shared intent rather than directionless exploration.

Thematically INHABIT negotiates presence and relationality. Love and belonging are examined not as abstract ideals but as lived experience shaped through listening and shared empathy. The album’s spatial clarity, both in performance and production, reinforces its focus on community, voice and resonance.

INHABIT is a compelling and deeply considered release. Thoughtful, spiritually aware and musically expansive, it confirms Sandrayati as an expressive force in contemporary vocal and ensemble music.

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Oppression Is Nine Tenths Of The Law

ORGANIC PULSE ENSEMBLE

Released 3 August 2025

RR Gems Records

****-

Free jazz reimagined with groove and purpose as a one-person ensemble channels jazz history into contemporary rhythm and resolution.

Organic Pulse Ensemble is the project of Swedish musician Gustav Horneij, a one-person ensemble who writes records and performs every instrument himself. Beginning with turntables beat-making and vinyl sampling, Horneij’s musical path led from hip-hop into jazz soul and funk, shaped by the influence of labels such as Black Jazz and Strata-East and figures like Sun Ra.

Over time, practical realities transformed the project into a fully self-contained studio endeavour, with multitracked horns rhythm section and percussion built in his home studio. Since its first release in 2019, Organic Pulse Ensemble has positioned groove driven jazz as a vehicle for protest uplift and collective consciousness.

Oppression Is Nine Tenths Of The Law is deeply rooted in groove. The album builds momentum through layered rhythm sections and tightly voiced horn arrangements, evoking the energy of classic big band jazz, facilitated by modern production techniques and sensibilities. The music moves with purpose, balancing repetition and variation with an ever-present sense of propulsion and collective drive.

Horneij’s hip-hop background is felt in the clarity of the rhythms and the weight of the bass lines, while the harmonic language and ensemble voicings draw directly from spiritual jazz and liberation era precedents. The music invites movement and reflection, while funk and soul elements surface naturally, grounding the album in physicality rather than theory.

Crucially, the political intent is carried by feel rather than explicit rhetoric. The album does not preach, but persuades through groove. By transmitting big band energy through a single pair of hands, Horneij creates music that feels communal even in its solitary construction.

Riversphere Vol. 1

IAIN BELLAMY

Released 2 November 2025

Babel Label

****-

A fluid, textural exploration between improvisation and composition, weaving together diverse musical influences into a seamless, organic whole that mirrors the endless cycles and movements of river ecosystems.

Saxophonist and composer Iain Ballamy has long been recognised for his adventurous blend of jazz tradition and exploratory soundscapes, a practice honed across collaborations with leading European improvisers and his own ensembles, with a repertoire that commenced with Bill Bruford and Tom Robinson in the late 1980's. Riversphere, Vol. 1 brings together an exceptional band, including Ballamy (tenor and alto sax), guitarist Rob Luft, bassist Conor Chaplin’, trumpeter Laura Jurd and drummer Corrie Dick and introduces Ballamy's son Charlie (trumpet).

From the initial interplay between Luft's gently harmonic opening bars and Ballamy's probing sax, Riversphere, Vol. 1 shapes to the narrative of the album's title. As the full band joins, it is clear that this is music composed with an organic logic and responsive to collective intuition. Ballamy’s writing encourages interplay upon the theme, as individual pieces work laterally as much as forward, allowing their insights to emerge one by one, through layered interaction, as horns and guitar weave melodic lines that suggest conversation more than hierarchy.

Rob Luft’s guitar work brings a vivid harmonic openness, looping between angular motifs and warm lyricism. Conor Chaplin’s bass underpins the ensemble with steady elasticity, while Corrie Dick transforms rhythmic space into kinetic detail with agile command. Guesting on three of the ten pieces, Laura Jurd’s trumpet shines with incisive clarity and bold phrasing, with Charlie Ballamy joining on two of them.

Riversphere, Vol. 1 is an accomplished and compelling ensemble piece that confirms Iain Ballamy and his extraordinary band as one of the classiest acts in the contemporary jazz universe. Ani if the album title holds true to it's promise, there should be more of the kind in future!

Iain Ballamy Home Page

Spotify

YouTube

Also recommended are "Quercus" and "Quercus Nightfall", Ballamy's previous albums with English vocalist June Tabor and Welsh pianist Huw Warren.

Tabor, Ballamy, Warren - Quercus (ECM, 2013)

Tabor, Ballamy, Warren - Quercus Nightfall (ECM, 2017)

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Be It Known

WINK WINKELMANN

Released 28 June 2025

Wink Winkelmann

****-

An ambitious genre-bending debut where spiritual jazz meditations meet eclectic rhythmic shifts and compositional curiosity with a playful exploratory spirit.

Be It Known marks the long-anticipated debut of bassist and composer Wink Winkelmann, a Venice, California–based artist whose musical path has been strikingly unconventional. After a 15-year hiatus during which he pursued medicine and dermatologic surgery, Winkelmann cultivated his sound as a self-taught composer, gaining early attention for evocative film scoring before assembling a diverse ensemble to realise his first full-length project. The album draws from spiritual jazz traditions while embracing wide-ranging influences including hip-hop, classical electronics and even heavy-metal textures, reflecting Winkelmann’s belief in improvisation as a connective thread across styles and his interest in expansive, often unpredictable musical dialogues.

The album unfolds as a mosaic rather than a straight narrative, with mood and momentum shaped by contrast as much as continuity. Winkelmann’s compositions navigate between meditative passages and spirited ensemble interplay, reflecting the album’s underlying spiritual jazz frame while refusing to be confined by it. From the playful genre-blending of “Cute and Clustered,” which moves from R&B-tinged melody into classical textures and psychedelic rock gestures, to “Q-Trip,” where hip-hop influences segue into swing-inflected jazz, the music is restless and generative.
The contributions of woodwinds keyboards and guitar add colour and directional shift, but it is Winkelmann’s bass, both electric and acoustic, that anchors the album, shaping harmonic space and rhythmic thrust. “The Id and The Eno” highlights soprano saxophone’s lyrical edge and dynamic drum support while maintaining a sense of structural openness.
This is a record that inhabits contrasting worlds within a single frame, without losing coherence. With moments of dense activity and passages of reflection, the result is a debut that feels exploratory and imaginative rather than merely eclectic, or eccentric.

Wink Winkelmann Bio

Keys

MATT OWENS

Released 22 May 2025

All Made Up Records

****-

A fluid and open minded set of compositions where the bass leads with quiet authority and genre boundaries soften in service of song and collective flow.

Manchester based composer and bassist Matt Owens has built a diverse career spanning jazz world classical and folk influenced music. His debut album The Aviators’ Ball drew on a large scale compositional vision, incorporating extended ensemble writing and cross genre thinking. Alongside this, Owens has worked widely as a bassist with artists ranging from Youth and Larry Harlow to The Herbaliser and Baked a La Ska, as well as writing songs with Kirsty Almeida for film and television. Keys presents Owens in a more distilled setting, foregrounding his compositional voice while retaining the stylistic openness that has long defined his work.

Keys is a bass led album in the truest sense, not through dominance but through configuration: Owens places the instrument at the centre of the music’s gravity, shaping harmony rhythm and direction with understated assurance.

The compositions are fluid and unforced, allowing influences to surface naturally rather than as signposts. Jazz forms the foundation, but traces of various folk influences are woven throughout. The ensemble is relaxed and conversational, with sufficient space given for lines to breathe and evolve. Owens’ bass work is melodic and supportive, guiding the music without constraining it.

Keys is a quietly confident release that showcases Matt Owens’ strengths as both composer and bassist. Grounded yet expansive, it reflects a mature musical voice comfortable working across borders while remaining anchored in ensemble connection.

Some Kind of Control

RUBY GILL

Released 28 March 2025

Ruby Gill / Timothy Harvey

****-

Charm and candour carry the emotional weight in this disarmingly open set, shaped by observation, vulnerability and everyday detail.

Ruby Gill is an Australian songwriter whose work sits at the intersection of indie, folk, spoken word and diaristic confession. Emerging from Melbourne’s rich music and songwriter scene, she has developed a compelling performance persona by the force of her distinctive lyrics set against minimalist instrumentation. Her speak-singing vocal style, conversational and unguarded, draws comparisons with antipodean peers such as Courtney Barnett, though Gill’s perspective is more inward and tender. Rather than relying on metaphor or theatrical flourish, her songs reflect intimate lived experience, small moments and emotional honesty.

Some Kind of Control her sophomore release, the follow up to I’m Gonna Die With This Frown On My Face (2022), presents a new collection that values clarity, sincerity and connection over polish. With a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, it unfolds with a sense of immediacy, as though the songs are being privately shared. Casual at the surface, and disarmingly unadorned, her phrasing and playing is carefully timed, so that lyrics land with a combination of directness and sincerity.

The opening track, Under the Flying Foxes on the Last Night of Summer, establishes the tone. Its melodic contours and emotional pacing (strongly) recall REM's "Everybody Hurts" (a "borrowing" that follows the folk tradition of tunes shared as a common good) but it's strength in the lyric that carries the day.

Throughout the album, Gill balances vulnerability with humour, resisting self importance even when addressing uncertainty loneliness or self doubt. The songs have the delicacy and force of poetry and they demand repeat listening to unpack their hidden secrets.

Produced with a her "found family, comprised of queer, female and gender-diverse local musicians" in Beechworth, Victoria, the arrangements are musically understated and supportive, creating space that allows the lyrical narrative to lead. The result is an album that Gill describes as "a searingly intimate, body-focused, yet globally-relevant sophomore that's cheekier, looser, gayer and even more raw" (than it's predecessor). Its strength lies in it's winning honesty and a distinctly contemporary candour that trusts simplicity to do the work.