This week’s guide is by CF Smith and contributors, Words By Shoaib and Irfan Ayaan.
We are chomping at the bit to share the latest edition of Between The Cracks. This week, we have six new releases we’re thrilled about, featuring the cherished Emma-Jean Thakaray, the formidable Sasha Berliner, the visionary Michael Sarian and more… We hope you’ll find some music you love and feel excited to hit the buy or share button. Wrap your ears around our latest picks below.
Albums
Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo
Weirdo is the second album by musical polymath Emma-Jean Thackray. Created in her South London flat, everything on the record is Thackray except for features by Reggie Watts and Kassa. Overall, the nineteen-track project analyses mental health, grief, and self-discovery by exploring the artist’s experiences, which included the shock death of her partner in 2023. It masterfully merges jazz, soul, grunge, pop, and p-funk into a musical composition that’s deeply complex yet wholly accessible. Through the title track, Thackray demonstrates how she unifies moods from jazz harmonies with funk rhythms into a single musical piece. The album reaches new emotional heights through innovative musical arrangements when Reggie Watts joins in ‘Black Hole’. The album has earned praise for its depth of emotion and musical innovation. The Guardian portrayed it as “a personal and powerful project born from grief and self-rediscovery”. Emma-Jean Thackray shows off her artistic prowess with Weirdo, blending intense emotional depth with remarkable sonic experimentation. – WBS
Cinema Royal – Cinema Royal
We can’t get enough of these two amigos! Producer Rejoicer and pianist Nitai Hershkovits operate as Cinema Royal in an elegant yet experimental musical expedition. Rejoicer and Hershkovits combine their Apifera contributions with jazz notes, electronic vibes and cinematic creativity in their musical performances. The music progresses as a cinematic musical score by displaying complex emotion with live improvisation. Cinema Royal combines reserved piano work with dissonant grooves by balancing hidden depth with innovative musical choices through tracks like The True North’, ‘Her, I’, and the title cut. The piano leads of Hershkovits glide seamlessly above Rejoicer’s atmospheric drum and bass soundbed, providing cool beat patterns and dreamlike elegance. Go enjoy it now… – CFS
Cantrips – From a Darebin Cave
The newest album by Patrick Ryan, aka Cantrips, From a Darebin Cave, landed today via Dune Castle Records. The album features Ryan and a talented ensemble of musicians created during a two-day live recording session that delivers a bit of a left turn from Ryan’s usual funk offerings with eight stunning acid-folk musical compositions. The recording brings together members of Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo, and Don Glori, who enrich its immersive composition. The album begins with ‘Into The Cave’, which uses melancholic melodies to establish its mood while keeping its instrumentation complex. In ‘Snake Skin’, the artist explores concepts of evolution through musical layers that match nylon-string guitar with minimal synth against rhythmic beats. The music in From a Darebin Cave reflects the approach Ryan drawing inspiration from the 60s and early 70s artists like Nick Drake, Terry Callier and Donovan alongside Frank Sinatra’s Watertown album. Lyrically, the album expresses themes of being alone and feeling sad while experiencing joy plus regret. These elements derive from the stunning Darebin Parklands surrounding the Dune Castle studio and the poetry of Mary Oliver, William Blake and Pablo Neruda. The musical ingredients of folk tradition combined with contemporary elements within From a Darebin Cave present listeners with an emotional and authentic musical journey. – WBS
Sasha Berliner – Fantôme
Sasha Berliner’s Fantôme haunts with spectral brilliance, establishing the vibraphonist as a formidable voice in contemporary jazz. The Los Angeles-based, Bay Area-born artist delivers her third and most compelling full-length recording to date. Berliner’s forward-thinking approach melds alternative and progressive jazz sensibilities, creating soundscapes that defy conventional categorisation. Her vibraphone work shimmers throughout the album’s six expansive compositions, complemented by an impressive cast of collaborators, including pianist Taylor Eigsti and bassist Harish Raghavan. Zenith is the album’s centrepiece, where Berliner’s ensemble—featuring David Adewumi and Rico Jones—reaches magnificent heights through intricate improvisational passages. The hauntingly beautiful The Worst Person In The World showcases her ability to craft emotionally resonant narratives within experimental frameworks. With Fantôme, Berliner cements her reputation as one of jazz’s most innovative voices, crafting music that respects tradition while boldly pushing into uncharted territory—essential listening for anyone tracking the evolution of contemporary jazz. – IA
Nadav Schneerson – Sheva
Nadav Schneerson’s debut, Sheva, captures lightning in a bottle. Recorded in just two days with minimal takes, it preserves the raw energy of compositions spanning his musical journey from adolescence to adulthood. A Tomorrow’s Warriors alumnus, Schneerson has developed alongside London’s finest jazz talents while carving his own path. He blends contemporary jazz with Middle Eastern influences that reflect his heritage and musical instincts. The album unfolds as a vibrant tapestry of acoustic and electronic textures, with Schneerson’s piano-driven compositions serving as the foundation for his seven-piece ensemble. The collaborative Yalla demonstrates the band’s cohesive chemistry, while Juju Man, featuring Afronaut Zu’s vocals, adds a compelling vocal dimension to the instrumental landscape. Negev, the album’s nearly ten-minute centrepiece, gives the ensemble room to stretch out. It showcases Schneerson’s compositional ambition and the group’s impressive interplay. Sheva stands as both personal documentation and artistic statement—a promising debut from a drummer-composer with a clear vision and the musical vocabulary to express it. – IA
Michael Sarian – Esquina
New York-based trumpeter Michael Sarian leads the listener via jazz fusion territories based on Soft Machine’s compositional techniques within Miles Davis’s electric period on his new album Esquina. Teaming up with Santiago Leibson on keyboards, Nathan Ellman-Bell on drums, and Marty Kenney on electric bass, the quartet creates deep grooves with innovative interplay. The first track, ‘Straight Trash’ begins the album, built around graphic scores and open structures that allow collective improvisation over almost twenty minutes. The work exists in four distinct segments that allow the musicians the freedom to lead the musical journey in the moment. Sarian drew inspiration from Miles Davis’s albums Agharta and On the Corner because they disrupted musical conventions and merged various musical styles, leading him to create Esquina. The album’s core lies in ‘Floating Ballerinas’, which runs an epic twenty-five minutes. Through this piece, the musicians once again present their knack for transforming graphic scores formed from Sarian’s drawings and sketches into improvised music, creating an intensely engaging, wild, and playful listening adventure. Sarian uses Esquina to demonstrate his dedication to expanding jazz frontiers. Its multifaceted sonic compositions both enthral and challenge the mind. This is one for the open-minded lover of experimental jazz.- WBS
