This week’s guide is by CF Smith and contributors Words By Shoaib, Gavin Senaratne and Irfan Ayaan.
It’s that time of the week again! If you’re a regular you’ll know that every Friday on Twistedsoul, we dig beneath the surface to bring you our Between The Cracks feature. Six left‑of‑centre discoveries, each paired with a mini‑review and the links you need to dive deeper (maybe even buy the album). This week, we bring you the leftfield, the weird, the strange, and the beautifully unexpected. If you’re drawn to music that sits just outside the obvious, you’re in the right place. Enjoy and have a lovely weekend.
Albums
Ciro Vitiello – Notes from the Air
Notes from the Air feels less like a collection of tracks and more like something drifting just out of reach. Ciro Vitiello builds the whole record around tension; flight and collapse, clarity and blur, and you hear that in how nothing ever fully settles. The early single ‘+days’ sets the tone. It stretches time, letting Heith’s presence pull the track into a slow, hypnotic spiral where rhythm feels implied rather than stated. It’s patient, slightly disorienting, and quietly emotional. ‘The Lighthouse Ghost’ moves differently. With Martyna Basta’s voice hovering over fragile instrumentation, it becomes the album’s emotional anchor. There’s a sense of distance in it, like calling out and not expecting an answer. What holds the album together is its restraint. Even at its most layered, it never pushes too hard. Field recordings, soft electronics, and acoustic textures blend into something that feels suspended mid-air. It doesn’t aim for resolution. Instead, it invites you to sit inside uncertainty, and that’s exactly where it works best. – WBS
Damian Dalla Torre – People Pleaser Review
Damian Dalla Torre‘s People Pleaser is a subtle yet deeply rewarding listen, one that embraces restraint without sacrificing emotional depth. People Pleaser finds Damian Dalla Torre embracing a more grounded and elemental approach, weaving acoustic textures, ambient details, and subtle electronics into a quietly captivating whole. The result feels organic and immersive, shaped as much by environment as by melody. ‘Intro / Sprouts‘ is the delicate opening piece that sets the album’s minimalist and organic tone. Subtle electronics, acoustics and bird noises serenade the ears. Next is ‘Longitude’, a track that showcases the album’s strengths. Built around flowing guitar lines, woodwinds, and shimmering percussion, the seven-minute piece unfolds patiently, revealing new details with each pass. Its sense of movement mirrors the travel and geography that inspired much of the record, creating an atmosphere that feels both expansive and intimate. On the gorgeous and sprawling ‘Chives‘, airy vocal textures, clarinet and autoharp swell into a lush soundscape. Collaboration sits at the core of People Pleaser. Guitarist Bertram Burkert (Conic Rose) lays down the album’s textural spine, recorded over an intense three‑day session with Dalla Torre. Around them, contributions from Laura Zöschg, Babett Niclas, Felix Römer, Markus Rom, Volker Heuken and Manami Kakudo widen the frame, keeping the sound intimate but quietly expansive. ‘Tenki Ame’ featuring Kakudo closes the record perfectly. Delicate spoken word, soft textures, gentle guitar from Burkert and field recordings of actual rainfall blend into a meditative composition that captures the stillness and calm Dalla Torre absorbed during his time in Japan. It is understated but quietly captivating. Across the album, both the collaboration and careful craftsmanship shine through. People Pleaser may be modest in presentation, but its warmth, elegance, and emotional resonance make it one of Dalla Torre’s most accomplished works to date. Dalla Torre and the ever brilliant Squama Recordings keep giving us the good stuff! – WBS
Akusmi – Terra Incognita
Terra Incognita reaches for the feeling of being somewhere you have never been before. Akusmi fuses spiritual and global jazz with life-affirming minimalism and polyrhythmic groove. A Waking Dream opens with a ten-minute flow. Repeating figures on keys and percussion create a rolling foundation while saxophone traces bright, singing lines over the top. Anima brings a more centred, meditative sway. Its patterns evoke slow travel through unfamiliar streets. Club Subterranea flips the script and leans closer to a late-night dance inner circle. The groove is insistent but still feels open. Pleine Lune glows with lunar calm and adds a more tender melodic core. Drongo’s Flute and Rain Dance highlight the record’s global reach. They sound like fragments of folk memory woven into contemporary rhythm language. Dawning Dusk closes the journey with a soft, expansive arc. The album keeps its promise of terra incognita while remaining warmly inviting. – IA
Scrimshire – Bring Our Light To Every Corner
South London producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer Adam Scrimshire responds to the turmoil and political anger that surrounds us all with his ninth studio album, ‘Bring Our Light To Every Corner’. Built on themes of patience, hope, and communal warmth, this record was assembled gradually over five years, drawing from 1960s and 70s spiritual jazz, expansive folk-soul, and delicate electronics. Bring Our Light To Every Corner is an album intentionally sequenced to map a journey through sleep, waking reflection, and finding communal calm. The cinematic opener, ‘My Land Is Your Land, Your Sky Is My Sky‘, combines distant strings and Mark Zentai‘s electric sitar with Jake Telford‘s searching soprano saxophone. Up next is ‘Asleep, A Dream’. The track initiates the album’s concept of drifting into sleep. It features the rich instrumentation of Idris Rahman on woodwinds and Amanda Whiting on harp, with Chris Boot on drums, while jazz vocalist Dwight Trible delivers a weighty lead performance. The title track gathers several of Scrimshire’s close collaborators into a glowing choir, while ‘With Our Eternal Hope & Joy‘ brings a brighter funk rhythm through Jessica Lauren‘s piano. The album’s six compositions unfold with unusual space and care, saving its most meditative moment for the end, ‘Your Heart Is My Heart, My Hand Is Your Hand‘, where Mahesh Kale‘s mantra-like vocals hover over gentle Rhodes. The ambitious fifteen-minute closer ‘Awake, A Dream‘ featuring Faye Houston shifts patiently from fragile guitars and piano into a rolling folk-soul groove and an ascendant, gospel-like finale. Bring Our Light To Every Corner is compelling because it refuses to confuse optimism with simplicity. Its arrangements are spacious but carefully detailed, with each guest contributing to a broader sense of musical fellowship. Scrimshire has created a warm, restorative album that offers light without pretending the darkness has disappeared. – GS
Ancient Infinity Orchestra – It’s Always About Liberation
It’s Always About Liberation feels like a companion to It’s Always About Love, but it carries a different charge. The new record leans into struggle, perseverance, and the desire for transformation. Nafas opens with a patient swell of spiritual energy. Horns, rhythm section, and strings circle a simple motif that gradually intensifies. Akshay deepens the atmosphere. It stretches over seven minutes of searching ensemble interplay and glowing modal harmony. Triton tightens the focus and rides a more urgent pulse. It feels like the band pushing through resistance. On Illuminations, textures thin out. The group plays with light and shadow, letting space do part of the work. The long title Celebrating the Beautiful Lineage of Sound & Hypnotic States is the record’s trance axis. It honours spiritual jazz tradition while staying rooted in the present. Closer Mountain brings a compact, resolute ending. The album knows the world is fractured, but it refuses to surrender to it. – IA
Memotone – Warm Shadows
Warm Shadows is the second full-length release by multi-instrumentalist, producer & composer memotone (Will Yates). A lushly arranged, beautiful album full of ethereal atmospheres, blending elements of ambient jazz fusion, drone, contemporary classical, and meditative minimalism. The album slowly builds from track to track, and the collaborators play a big part in that, nudging the momentum in new directions and introducing subtle shifts in tone, texture, and energy that keep the whole thing evolving. Ugnė Uma: the Lithuanian vocalist lends a blend of spiritual jazz, Eastern European melancholy, and smooth soul on ‘Laimėti Pavyksta’ and ‘You Are Different‘. While Jabu’s Jasmine Buttcontributes subtle, hushed vocals to the evocative ‘Round The Bend‘. Elsewhere, Typesun provides organic, intricate percussion and drum programming on ‘Laimėti Pavyksta‘ alongside Uma. Warm Shadows is a must-listen for anyone who enjoyed the recent albums of Laurence Pike, Booker Stardrum and Florian T M Zeisig. Click, listen and enjoy! – CFS
