This week’s guide is by CF Smith and contributors Words By Shoaib, Neil G, Benny Thomas, and Gavin Senaratne.
Each Friday at Twistedsoul, we showcase a small selection of new releases that have caught our collective ears. We search Between The Cracks to bring you new music overlooked by the mainstream. This week, we’re highlighting albums from Early Fern, Or Kantor, Saha Gnawa, Misha Sultan 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
Joanna Duda Trio – Delighted
You recall we were super excited to see that the Joanna Duda Trio emerged from a near four-year hiatus a few months back with a dazzling new track, ‘When The Truffles Get Dry’. Well, now we have a whole album’s worth of music to salivate over. From the off, ‘Delighted’ immediately establishes its hypnotic grip with the opening track ‘We’re New To This Planet’, a six-and-a-half-minute trip that perfectly encapsulates Duda’s ability to weave “intricate, shifting rhythms with memorable melodic hooks.” The album’s sonic landscape is built upon the interplay between Duda’s piano work, Michał Bryndal’s crackling percussion, and Maksymilian Mucha’s double bass, which drives with what Norman Records describes as “looming intensity.” The playfully titled “Those Who Think They’re French, But They’re Actually Russian” stretches across nine minutes, allowing the trio ample space to explore their collective consciousness approach. Tracks like ‘When the Truffles Get Dry’ and ‘All The Things I’m Forgetting When I’m Sad’ lean into Duda’s cinematic approach and playfulness as well as her knack for unconventional musical layering. You’ll find a delightful meshing of styles wrapped around inventive rhythms and melodies. An album that gets better with every listen. – CFS
Early Fern – Wetland Interiors
Early Fern’s Wetland Interiors feels like a quiet immersion into overlooked ecosystems. Across six pieces, the Syracuse-based composer crafts pastoral ambient landscapes that hum with the persistence of marshes, ponds, and riverbanks. Field recordings of water and birds slip seamlessly into synths, guitar, and piano, blurring the line between environment and melody. The album’s intimacy lies in its restraint, rather than vast washes of sound. Early Fern builds distinct patterns that ripple gently, evoking both fragility and endurance. ‘Where Catfish Dwell’ sinks into subterranean textures, its low gurgles and resonant hums creating a sense of being submerged, as life unfolds just below the surface. The closing ‘Willows At Marsh Edge’ stretches to twelve minutes, layering reeds, drones, and watery echoes into a drifting, enveloping meditation that swells with quiet catharsis. With Wetland Interiors, Early Fern offers not just soundscapes but sanctuaries, inviting listeners to slow down and notice the subtle abundance of places often overlooked. It’s meditative, grounding, and deeply human in its attentiveness. – WBS
СОЮЗ (SOYUZ) – Krok
Belarusian band СОЮЗ (SOYUZ) returns with their fourth album, ‘Krok’. Translating into “step” in Belarusian, this 27-minute journey marks a bold evolution, as the group takes a step in a new direction. Released in 2025, this is songwriter Alex Chumak’s first foray into Belarusian vocals, infusing the project with an intimate mystique that reflects the political turbulence in their homeland. The second track, ‘língua do mundo’, is an excellent showcase of the album’s thesis, featuring Tim Bernardes on vocals and a rich palette of strings, woodwinds, and mellow percussion to craft a sound that’s both nostalgic and forward-looking. A large portion of the album was recorded in São Paulo, with prominent Brazilian musicians Sessa, Biel Basile, and Marcelo Cabra joining SOYUZ in the studio. The Latin influences are evident in tracks like ‘P7 Blues’ and ‘Voo Livre’, which also draw inspiration from electronica, symphonic music, and seemingly everything in between. The album’s melancholic core is evident from the outset, with every single standing out for its emotional depth and lingering moods. While still quintessentially SOYUZ, ‘Krok’ is a step forward that feels like a giant leap, and is a must-listen for fans of genre-blending introspection. – GS
Or Kantor – Snake Island
With Snake Island, London-based multidisciplinary artist Or Kantor expands his self-described “Surfterranean” universe into deeper, more cinematic terrain. The album unfolds like a mirage —part dream, part memory —drawing listeners into a world where Mediterranean noir, desert blues, and spiritual jazz dissolve into a hypnotic pulse. Kantor’s music feels tactile and visual, informed by his background in tattooing and painting; each sound seems etched in motion, evoking shifting heat, faded horizons, and the melancholy of distance. Where his debut Sarda Sarda hinted at wanderlust, Snake Island plunges into its aftermath, an imagined journey through isolation, myth, and transformation. The instrumentation glows with analogue warmth and earthy textures, blending surf-style guitars, ritual rhythms, and subtle electronic undercurrents into something timeless yet forward-looking. It’s music that feels both ancient and futuristic, cinematic but intimate. Snake Island solidifies Or Kantor as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary global fusion, a sonic storyteller crafting atmospheric odysseys that blur the line between soundscape, emotion, and visual art. – WBS
Saha Gnawa – Saha Gnawa
With their self-titled debut, Saha Gnawa deliver a transcendent fusion of Moroccan tradition and New York’s jazz avant-garde, an ecstatic meeting of trance, rhythm, and improvisation. Co-led by Maâlem Hassan Ben Jaafar and drummer Daniel Freedman, the ensemble channels the centuries-old Gnawa spirit into a luminous, futuristic groove, recorded in the late-night glow of Brooklyn’s LunÀtico sessions. The result feels ancient and modern at once: ritual call-and-response vocals and the deep pulse of the guembri entwine with shimmering synths and improvisatory fire. Two advance tracks capture this synthesis perfectly. ‘Soudani Manayou,’ featuring Nels Cline, invokes Gnawa ancestors through rolling chants and electric psychedelia, its momentum spiralling into ecstatic release. ‘Bacha Hamou’ also with Cline, channels raw, red-spirit energy, distorted guitar, and hypnotic percussion, driving toward transcendence. Produced with striking clarity by Freedman and mixed by Eli Crews, Saha Gnawa redefines the global jazz landscape. It’s not just a collaboration, it’s a conversation between worlds. In this living ritual, tradition, groove, and spirit meet in perfect, spellbinding balance. – WBS
Yasmin Hamdan- I Remember I Forget رﻛذﺗﺑو ﻰﺳﻧ
Yet another brilliant work in the growing repertoire of accomplished alternative Arab musician Yasmine Hamdan, the album I Remember I Forget رﻛذﺗﺑو ﻰﺳﻧﺑ signals Hamdan’s excellent return to the scene with layers of electronica harmonising with Palestinian folklore. The elements of Arabic soul and the synthetic flavours all come together to weave a unified sound of solidarity. Among the many tracks in the album, some standout songs include “The Beautiful Losers نﯾﻧارﺳﺧﻟا ﻊﯾﺎﻧﺻ ﻊﺑﺳ نﯾوﻠﺣﻟا”, which offers painful wit, “Vows”, which evolves into darker undertones throughout the song, and Mor رﻣ ﻲﻧﺟﺗﻟا, where electronics and Arabic styles blend together beautifully. This isn’t just background music; it’s a homage to history with an uncompromising, forward-looking approach. – NG
Misha Sultan – Lantern in the Woods
After years of sonic wandering through Siberian soundscapes and Eurasian electronica, multi-instrumentalist Misha Sultan has finally decided to sit still long enough to make a proper album. And thank goodness he did. Born from late-night jam sessions in Saint Petersburg and finished under the sultry spell of Thai evenings, this is “bedroom jazzy” done right. Sultan glides between the spontaneous energy of collaborative improvisation (shout out to the Sri Primat collective) and the introspective warmth of solo creation, mixing memory with present moment, nature with urbanity, light with shadow. It’s basically what would happen if ambient jazz got lost in the woods and decided to… stay there. Sultan has made a career out of resisting categorisation—ambient, dub techno, krautrock, whatever else feels right. With friends like his brother Zhenya and vocalist Nina Livanova adding their textures, Lantern in the Woods achieves that rare feat: music that sounds intimate without being claustrophobic, expansive without losing focus. Is it his best work? Time will tell. But it’s undoubtedly his most complete. – BT
