Theon Cross announces new live album, Affirmations: Live at Blue Note New York

12 June 2025

Theon Cross has announced Affirmations: Live at Blue Note New York, a new live album arriving on July 11th through New Soil and Division 81. Recorded during his debut US headline show at the iconic Blue Note, the album captures Cross leading a transatlantic quartet featuring Chicago’s Isaiah Collier on sax, James Russell Sims on drums, and long-time London collaborator Nikos Ziarkas on guitar. Cross has been a key figure in London’s jazz resurgence for years, collaborating with the likes of Sons of Kemet, Steam Down, Nubya Garcia, Moses Boyd, Makaya McCraven, Jon Baptiste, and many more. The 12-track album draws heavily from previous releases, 2019’s Fyah and 2021’s Intra-I, and the 2022 single ‘Wings’, but nothing is played straight, everything is reworked in the moment, and stretched into new shapes by the energy in the room. Even his version of Aswad’s ‘Back to Africa’, originally the B-side to ‘Wings’, finds its way into the flow. Structured more like a DJ set than a traditional jazz performance, Affirmations moves with fluid energy, sitting in the lineage of live classics recorded at Blue Note but with a foot firmly planted in the present.

Ahead of the album’s release, Cross has shared the lead single, ‘Affirmations’, a 14-minute slow-build epic that stretches and contracts like a living thing. As Cross puts it, the track “speaks to the power of verbally and mentally affirming the things we wish to see for ourselves in our reality.” Listen to ‘Affirmations’ now.

Cate Le Bon set to release new record, Michelangelo Dying, in September

07 June 2025

Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon has announced the release of Michelangelo Dying, her seventh album and follow-up to 2022’s Pompeii. Written in the thick of heartbreak, what began as one thing became another. “Its creation led by pure emotion,” says the press release. “The product of all-consuming heartache… it became a kind of exorcism.” Michelangelo Dying moves in cycles, without conclusion. “There is no reason. There is repetition and chaos,” Le Bon explains. “I eventually allowed myself a vacant mind to experience it without resistance and without searching for a revelation or order to any of it..”

The album was recorded between Hydra, Cardiff, London, Los Angeles, and the California desert, with Samur Khouja sharing production duties. Le Bon credits him with helping her get lost in the process while staying anchored. She comments:

“There’s this idea that you could do everything yourself, but the value of having someone you completely trust, as I do Samur, be your co-pilot allows you to get completely lost knowing you’ll get pulled back in at the right moment. We have come to quietly move as one in the studio.”

We’ll have to wait until September 26th for the album to be out through Mexican Summer but we can already hear the first single, ‘Heaven Is No Feeling’,  offered alongside an accompanying video directed by longtime collaborator H. Hawkline. He had this to say about it:

“There are moments in life you can’t make up, that seem unfathomable, then they happen. Life calls you on a banana phone and tells you her oldest joke, everybody crowds around and you try to remember the words to your favourite song. If you were to ask me how we made this video, I couldn’t tell you. Cate watching her, watching her watching Cate. I will always feel honoured to work with Cate in whatever shape or form, it’s easy to forget how remarkable someone is when you’ve known them forever. ‘I want you to make me a new video.’ ‘Have you watched the old one yet?’ ‘No’ …Bravo!’”

Watch the video below.

Mansur Brown announces new album, Rihla, and drops first single ‘Alone’

05 June 2025

Photo: Greg Barnes

We’ve been following Mansur Brown since his early days in the London jazz scene, and there’s big news, the Brixton-born guitarist, producer, and composer has just announced his eagerly awaited new album, Rihla. Described as his most personal record to date, on Rihla Brown blends his signature guitar virtuosity with electronic, rock, and DnB influences, all while introducing his own vocals for the first time.  A word that translates to journey in Arabic, Rihla is exactly that, a voyage through musical landscapes that are uniquely his. The album carries a range of moods, from uplifting to introspective, as Brown explains:

“My music has many different feelings, but running through all of it are senses of happiness, and gratitude. I want it to feel rejuvenating.”

Written, performed, and produced entirely by himself, Rihla arrives on August 1st through his own label AMAI. Ahead of it, Brown has shared the album’s lead single, ‘Alone’, a reflective track about self-esteem and the struggle for self-acceptance. Speaking about it, he says:

“Alone is about a friend who struggles with internal self esteem issues and the need for external validation. The song talks about the constant inward battle of wanting to be better but not believing that it’s possible. It describes the difficulty of self actualisation and how that can only be achieved when you’re comfortable in your own skin i.e. being Alone. This all ties into the journey that we need to go on.”

‘Alone’ comes with an accompanying video and you can watch it below.

In other exciting news, Mansur Brown has a couple of live shows lined up – catch him in Porto at Matosinhos em Jazz on July 5th and in London at Scala on October 7th.

Watch Grandbrothers’ video for lead single ‘We Collide’

03 June 2025

Last month, Grandbrothers announced the release of their new album Elsewhere, alongside the first single ‘We Collide’. Now the German-Swiss duo have paired the track with an accompanying video directed by Austrian filmmaker Rupert Höller, who had this to say about it:

“The hypnotic pull and the powerful use of repetition in ‘We Collide’ fascinated me from the very first listen. My goal was to make that feeling – the chaos of an inner storm – tangible through abstract imagery, creating a visual journey from disorientation to acceptance.”

Grandbrothers’ pianist Erol Sarp also shared his thoughts on the video:

“What we really appreciate about Rupert’s take is how naturally he picked up on the energy and movement of the track. He really understood what we were going for – the dynamics, the transitions, that inner tension building slowly throughout. And he found a visual language that translates the energy of the music into motion.”

Watch the video below and watch out for the album’s release on September 26th through __and__others.

Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer unveil ‘Side by Side’ ft. Jeff Parker

03 June 2025

Photo: Charlie Weinmann

After introducing Different Rooms with the enveloping and hazy first single ‘Mean Solar Time‘, modular synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer have shared a second glimpse into their upcoming album titled ‘Side by Side’. On the track, “a spectrum of deconstructed and looped guitar lines by Jeff Parker form a stirring melodic soundscape that’s buoyed by Honer’s lush string arrangements”, as the press release describes. “As the tune develops, arpeggios slowly fade from the background to the foreground, revealing Chiu’s modular synthesizer as the engine underneath the hood.”

Listen to ‘Side by Side’ below and grab the album when it drops on June 20th through International Anthem.

Mark Guiliana announces new piano-centred album, questions (volume one)

30 May 2025

Photo: Charlie Weinmann

Mark Guiliana has announced questions (volume one), a new album that finds the acclaimed  drummer and composer stepping away from the drum kit and toward the intimate resonance of a small upright piano. The follow-up to last year’s Grammy-nominated MARK is a more personal and reflective affair, “investigating the quiet tension of unresolved thought”, as the press release describes. The album unfolds gently, with subtle electronics and intricate textures guiding nine delicate, open-ended pieces.

We’ll have to wait until June 30th for the full album to arrive through Edition Records, but the first glimpse is already here with the opening track, ‘how can i help?’, a delicate and quietly beautiful piece that sets the tone for what’s to come. Take a listen below.