Harvest (2024)

From rising star Australian saxophonist and composer Oscar Bruten is an album celebrating the natural beauty of the Strzelecki Ranges in rural Victoria.

Her curiosity, her thirst for discovery and her audacity have led her to cultivate eclecticism, to follow paths less travelled and to take us to places where we might not have expected her to go. Deeply committed to the process of creating new music, she has also developed a passion for the minimalist movement and a notable penchant for music stripped down to extreme starkness. From her many immersions in often hypnotic sound worlds, Vanessa Wagner has emerged a different person, freer and more willing to reveal herself. And so it is that today she offers us what is probably her most personal recording, a programme she developed over two long years, constructing an imaginary, fantasised narrative based on miniatures by Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Glinka. The pianist becomes the author and narrator of a story of shadows and light.

For his seventh album as leader, saxophonist and composer Eric Séva surprises us, as usual, with a singular album, which once again, does not resemble the previous one. He designs his music by liking to take risks and get out of his comfort zone, which is also the best definition of a jazz musician.

'Altera Vita' is the first studio album by World renowned multi-award winning artists Tony Kofi (tenor saxophone) and Alina Bzhezhinska (harp) as a duo. The album is saxophone and harp in perfect harmony with Tony and Alina also providing the bulk of the percussion to accompany their recordings. Tony Kofi is widely recognized as one of the leading Jazz saxophonists in the UK and his duties include regularly lending his skills to legendary group Cymande for their live performances. Alina has been heralded as the "New Sound of Europe'' and the duo’s innovative and refreshing approach to recording is apparent on this album. The namesake and inspiration for this album; ‘Altera Vita’ (2023) was named in Downbeat’s jazz albums of 2023, which is very rare for a single release!

Dreamer Boy, born Zachary Arthur Taylor, is a genre-bending artist fusing Americana, R&B and indie-rock to paint a warm picture all his own. Hailing from Waco, Texas and then later spending time living in Nashville, Tennessee (where the Dreamer Boy project began.) Taylor brings a southern twang and country songwriting sensibilities to the pop world together with his band The Lone Stars, a 6 piece band that formed in Los Angeles. Lonestar is Dreamer Boy’s third full-length album. The indie star and singer-songwriter took his time—two years of searching—and it shows. Moving from Nashville to Los Angeles, Dreamer Boy found his new direction during trips out West, back East, and out again, watching the miles of the country pass by. At its heart, the record is about finding yourself. It’s about building yourself as a person in the turbulence of a breakup, which involves looking back, feeling a little lost, a little heartbroken, a little nostalgic. But, ultimately, there’s clarity—you figure out what makes you really yourself, even if it might change.

Go where the action is! Memphis is in the center of the United States and at the crossroads of black American music. And Clarksdale is there, like a ghost town that has never woken up from its past, there, 60 miles further south, in the state of Mississippi, on the road to Louisiana and New Orleans.

The third album of powerfully vivid songwriting from Marina Allen. Beautifully orchestrated, highly melodic and delivered with unrivalled lyrical perspective. Across two acclaimed records, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has ripened a rare harvest, but her third studio album is an arrival home.

Hailing from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, Free to Grow (FTG) first performed live in September 2014 and released a self-titled debut album that November.

SOMM Recordings is thrilled to announce African Pianism, Volume 2, a new instalment in a collection of piano music by African composers. Following suit from her critically acclaimed first African Pianism album, Rebeca Omordia brings us a fascinating programme with no less than 8 First Recordings. Among these is the 4th in a selection of three Studies in African Pianism by Akin Euba, a Nigerian composer who makes a return on this second volume and whose “African Pianism” style, inspired by the research of Ghanaian composer J.H. Kwabena Nketia (see vol.1), shares its name with this outstanding series as a whole.

Antoni Gaudí’s monumental temple La Sagrada Familia is a universe within a building. Its mass of stone and metal is bathed in coloured light diffused from dazzling stained glass windows. The colossal structure is supported by great pillars inspired by the shapes of tree trunks that re-inforce the impression of a spiritual forest. Around the main access points to the basilica are three great facades; Nativity, Passion and Glory. Each is a visual world unto itself, stylistically apart yet united by Gaudí’s grandiose vision. These three facades are the inspiration of my three-movement La Sagrada Familia Symphony.