Reviews

Nest

Reinis Jaunais

By combining instruments from his native country of Latvia, such as the kolke (a harp/zither relative of Lithuania’s kankle and...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Orchestrations

Guy Buttery

Buttery has pursued a more eclectic approach to incorporating global styles into his guitar playing than his fellow South African...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Lion Awakes

Amayo

For 23 years, Nigerian singer Amayo was the frontman for the acclaimed Afrobeat collective Antibalas. Having left the band in...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Atlanti Kaw

Soledad Kalza & Sina Kienou

Now based in Belgium, the Burkinabé guitarist Sina Kienou and European vocalist Soledad Kalza met at a festival in 2019...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Karma Sheen

Karma Sheen

60s rock meets Hindustani sounds and Sufi lyricism in this album of bright colours and youthful euphoria. Karma Sheen is...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Luminescent Creatures

Ichiko Aoba

Following the international success of her 2020 album Windswept Adan, Japanese singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ichiko Aoba returns with a spiritual...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Racines

JB Moundele

As the album’s French title would suggest, tenor saxophonist JB Moundele here explores the traditional West African ‘roots’ of jazz,...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Hymns of Bantu

Abel Selaocoe

Anything Abel Selaocoe touches is bound to be extraordinary. Having followed his career from its early days, it’s been a...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Road Rasa

Jawari

Following up an impressive 2021 solo debut, Vignettes, British sitarist Tommy Khosla introduces their ensemble Jawari, together with saxophone, guitars...

Reviewed in issue April/2025

Women

Kat-Tet

The wildly fecund jazz fusion of Guadeloupe, that archipelago of a dozen plus islands out where the northwest Caribbean meets...

Reviewed in issue April/2025