This week’s guide is by CF Smith and contributors, Words By Shoaib and Irfan Ayaan.
Each week at Twistedsoul, we showcase the finest new releases from across the globe. We scour Between The Cracks to bring you new albums that might have flown under your radar. This week, we’re highlighting new albums from Salami Rose Joe Louis, Felbm, New Fossils, Jimi Prasad Orchestra and more. Lend an ear to the music, and if it strikes a chord, show some love to the artists and labels by supporting them.
Albums
Jimi Tenor with Cold Diamond & Mink – July Blue Skies
Timmion Records recently blessed us with the collaborative project July Blue Skies, which combines the talents of Finnish musician Jimi Tenor and soul architects Cold Diamond & Mink. The album presents six tracks combining funk and soul elements with jazz through Tenor’s distinctive synth sounds and the collective band’s impeccable groove. The album’s opening title track begins with a long analog synth intro that gently evolves into a charming romantic call, creating an enchanted and otherworldly feeling. Next is ‘Sky Train Baby’, a track that creates a space voyage through celestial realms by blending cosmic rhythms with soulful melodies. The album concludes with the track ‘Tsicroxe’, a wild ride of funky and devilish sounds. The album emerged from intense recording sessions with Tenor and Cold Diamond & Mink to deliver tracks that weave between soundtrack funk and mellow grooves to create a mystical, free-flowing sonic journey. The July Blue Skies demonstrates how this meeting of the minds executes the perfect fusion of multiple musical styles, establishing an atmosphere that embodies classic sounds and emerging trends. – WBS
Salami Rose Joe Louis – Lorings
Salami Rose Joe Louis’ latest endeavour, ‘Lorings’, puts forth a playful exploration of raw emotion and sonic experimentation. SRJL herself describes the album as a platter of her personality, laid bare for the world to taste. This vulnerability permeates every note as she deftly bypasses the overthinking, allowing her authentic self to shine through. Crafted almost entirely on her trusty Roland MV8800 workstation, SRJL proves that you don’t need a sprawling studio or a legion of producers to create something profound. Collaborations with friends like Flanafi, Omari Jazz, Luke Titus, and Sergio Machado Plim add delightful accents without overshadowing SRJL’s unique voice. The Bay Area genre travellers’ sixth album invites listeners to traverse the intricate landscapes of her psyche – so what are you waiting for? Jump in! – CFS
Violeta García – IN / OUT
IN / OUT finds Argentinian cellist and composer Violeta García pushing the boundaries of musical convention. Recorded in an underground reservoir in Geneva, the environment plays a crucial role in shaping the album’s sonic identity, with the natural acoustics enhancing every note and nuance. This dark ambient offering features nine meticulously crafted pieces, with García manipulating the cello with microtonality and alternative tunings. The pieces ebb and flow, creating a sense of movement that mirrors the title’s duality—an exploration of what it means to be both present and absent, engaged and detached. A fascinating and masterful release from García. – CFS
Felbm – winterspring/summerfall
With winterspring/summerfall, Dutch multi-instrumentalist Eelco Topper (aka Felbm) crafts a meditative 81-minute journey through the micro-seasons of the year, inspired by the Japanese Nijūshi-sekki calendar. Each of the 28 tracks functions like a brushstroke, subtle, brief, and intentional, rendering nature’s transformations in ambient tones, lo-fi textures, and fourth-world instrumentation. Built around field recordings, gentle acoustic layers, and earthy percussion, the music flows like a cycle: never rushing, always returning. Topper’s hands-on approach, recording, mixing, and composing everything himself, results in an intimate yet expansive album. Every sound is carefully placed, from the flutter of bansuri flutes and gamelan gongs to the grounding pulse of double bass and seed shakers. The four seasonal suites anchor the album’s narrative, while the 24 shorter pieces trace its quiet heartbeat. More than a listening experience, winterspring/summerfall invites us to slow down, observe, and align with the rhythms outside our windows. It’s ambient, not as background, but as environment, immersive, grounded, and quietly profound. – WBS
New Fossils – Ecosphere
Ecosphere marks the third album (their second this year) by New Fossils via Morotva Records. In this album, the group ditched their polished jazz style to dive into experimental waters, blending synths, electric bass, and dynamic percussion to create a vibrant, natural-sounding musical canvas. In early October 2023, the band started the album’s recording amidst the Mátra mountains in Hungary, setting the stage before hitting the studio the following year. The quintet also brought singers Emma Nagy and Noémi Szabó-Takács, plus percussionist András Weil and cimbalom player Áron Horváth, to join them on the album recordings. ‘Being Lost’ and ‘Brian Tea’s’ brilliantly showcase the album’s beautiful combination of ambient jazz with Eastern European flavour. The lively ‘Footwork’ will have the part mentioned in the title doing precisely that—moving and grooving. New Fossils advances jazz music with a forward-thinking approach, using Ecosphere to create compositions that blend experimentation with emotion. – WBS
Pidgins – Refrains of the Day, Volume 2
Mexico City duo Pidgins returns with a cerebral exploration that transforms managerial jargon and self-help mantras into hypnotic sound collages. Percussionist Milo Tamez and electronics/vocalist Aaron With continue their fascinating deconstruction of contemporary trance states through rhythmic repetition and linguistic play. The album navigates a territory between experimental electronic music and free jazz, creating a disorienting yet captivating soundscape. The compositions employ phasing techniques, stretching, inverting, and reconfiguring familiar phrases until new meanings emerge from the sonic Debris. Value Added is the album’s centrepiece, a seven-minute journey in which percussive elements gradually accumulate around distorted vocal fragments, creating a mesmerising tension. Special Economic Zone delivers a more condensed punch, its tight rhythmic structures mimicking bureaucratic efficiency while subtly undermining it. This challenging yet rewarding listen proves Pidgins remains at the forefront of Mexico City’s vibrant experimental scene, masterfully transforming linguistic critique into compelling sonic art. – IA
EP’s
Jimi Prasad Orchestra – Nolite Opus
Nolite Opus is a luminous, genre-defying suite by the enigmatic Jimi Prasad Orchestra, merging neo-classical elegance with jazz fluidity and ambient depth. Across four meticulously crafted tracks, the album feels less like a recording and more like a spiritual offering, cinematic, introspective, and surprisingly human. Produced alongside Rejoicer and Avishai Cohen, each movement exudes quiet intensity, unfolding like a sonic meditation. Standout track “Mudra of Infinity” opens with a gentle yet intricate arrangement, featuring Nitai Hershkovits’ clarinet and keys. It’s atmospheric and tender, composed during wartime yet offering a peaceful, almost sacred, refuge. In contrast, the “Nolite Opus” title track stretches nearly 10 minutes, evolving from a solemn ambience into an expansive, orchestral crescendo with Eyal Talmudi’s clarinet and Tamuz Dekel’s shimmering guitar. It’s a slow-burning marvel, haunting, hopeful, and transcendent. While brief in runtime, Nolite Opus leaves a lasting imprint. It is meditative music for delicate, deliberate, and deeply felt chaotic times. This is a rare gem worth sitting still for cinematic jazz and ambient fusion fans. – WBS
