Tsegue Maryam Guebrou

On their self-titled debut album, Mambo Noir Trio brings together dark exotica and jazzy swagger. The result of a series of inspired after-hours sessions, Mambo Noir is an album of hushed exotica without the kitsch factor. Instead of transporting the listener to exotic faraway islands, Mambo Noir’s music places us immediately in a smoky harbour bar scene that could be an outtake from a French 1940s film noir. Mambo Noir Trio treats its source material with a tentative playfulness that allows vibraphone timbres time to diffuse and roll out, while double bass loops keep the musical movement grounded. This approach is somewhat reminiscent of Belgian film composer Francois de Roubaix, with the harmonic nuances of Cuban mambo pianist Ruben Gonzalez’ improvisations thrown in for good measure.

Since the release of 2015’s Love Songs for Robots, Montreal art-rock savant Patrick Watson has endured all manner of hardships—the death of his mother, the end of a long-term relationship, the departure of drummer Robbie Kuster, and the loss of a friend to suicide. They’re the sort of life-altering events that can’t help but filter down into an artist’s work. But while the title of his eponymous band’s sixth album, Wave, references the emotional tsunami he was forced to navigate, Watson refused to let grief be his guiding principle. “I just wanted to make a really simple and beautiful record—a little bit like Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden,” Watson tells Apple Music. That focus yields some of the most elegant, lyrically direct songwriting of Watson’s career, as he deftly threads Lennon-esque melodies and lean acoustic/piano arrangements with orchestration. But Wave’s spare canvas also leaves Watson with enough space to indulge his love of off-kilter experimentation—as he explains, making a low-volume record is not necessarily the same thing as making a low-key one.

Nuna is a book of compositions for solo piano by Cuban-American pianist and composer David Virelles. A 2021 recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Virelles has worked with musicians as distinct as Henry Threadgill, Andrew Cyrille, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Turner, Chris Potter, Tomasz Stanko, Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, Tom Harrell and Milford Graves. His release Continuum (Pi 2012) was named the best jazz release of that year by The New York Times. After three esteemed releases on the ECM label, Virelles returned to Pi with Igbo Alakorin: The Singers Grove (2017), which was voted top Latin Jazz album in that year’s NPR Jazz Critics Poll.