This week’s guide is by CF Smith and contributors: Words By Shoaib, Benny Thomas, Gavin Senaratne and Irfan Ayaan.
With the festival dust still on our trainers, after a joyful detour to Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here festival, we’re back on out usual Friday errr almost Saturday dig for the sounds that you’ll find Between The Cracks. This week’s selection moves with that same open‑minded festival energy: deep, expressive jazz from Moses Yoofee Trio, spiritual fire from Alan Braufman, meditative, nature-focused vibes from Laura Misch, curious Brazilian shapes from Curio Curio, and a handful of other gems that demanded a little extra attention. Dive in, enjoy, and keep showing love to the artists and labels. Check out our latest picks below.
Albums
Curió Curió – Curió Curió
Curió Curió’s self-titled debut transforms distance into something warm, rhythmic and deeply human. Rio-born vocalist Luiza Monteiro and German producer Dustin Braun never treat Brazilian MPB as a museum piece, instead allowing samba, psychedelic disco and analogue experimentation to evolve naturally together. The result feels vibrant and lived-in, balancing nostalgia with forward-looking curiosity while exploring identity, belonging and the emotional complexity of carrying more than one home. ‘Bem Querer’ immediately captures that spirit with infectious street-samba energy and an irresistibly uplifting chorus. Monteiro’s expressive vocals glide effortlessly over Braun’s warm analogue production, where hand percussion, shimmering keys and rich ensemble arrangements create an atmosphere that feels both communal and intimate. The groove is effortless, yet every instrumental layer reveals thoughtful craftsmanship beneath its joyful exterior. ‘Amor Doente’ shifts into more emotionally tangled territory. Built around a loose funk pulse, smoky brass lines and understated synthesisers, the track explores relationships trapped between attachment and uncertainty. Monteiro delivers its emotional weight with restraint rather than melodrama, allowing the arrangement’s spaciousness to amplify every lyrical nuance while Braun’s production maintains an organic, tactile warmth throughout. Songs like ‘Amor Doente‘ and ‘Mar sem Dar Pé’ circle around relationships that resist clarity, while ‘Menina Passarinho‘ captures the fear and necessity of committing to music as a path. Curió Curió succeeds because it never feels caught between continents or traditions. Instead, it embraces movement as its defining strength, creating an inviting debut where Brazilian musical heritage, modern studio imagination and heartfelt songwriting coexist with remarkable confidence and grace. – WBS
Horse Lords – Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive
Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! pushes Horse Lords‘ interlocking rhythm and pattern language into even more detailed and ecstatic territory. The opener Eureka 378 B reworks a nineteenth-century Sacred Harp hymn. It sets spiritual stakes while introducing the band’s microtonal guitar and polyrhythmic feel. Brain of the Firm locks into a tight groove. Bass, drums, and sax create moiré-like interactions that are complex yet immediately physical. Short pieces such as Rotation I and Rotation II operate like turning points. They reset the grid before the longer tracks arrive. First Galactic Utopia and Rotation III push further into cyclical trance. Patterns tessellate and suggest both machinery and ritual. Before the Law and After the Last Sky introduce more explicit melodic arcs and a sense of narrative tension. A City Yet to Come and the title track close the album with extended, liberating builds. The music feels impossibly detailed yet completely human and aimed at a utopian dimension of sound. – IA
Laura Misch – Lithic
London-based saxophonist, producer and field recordist Laura Misch continues her elemental journey with Lithic. Building on the backdrop of Sample The Sky, which floated through clouds, and Sample The Earth, which settled into soil, this album descends into caves, quarries, and the darker chambers of the psyche. The opening track ‘Breathing‘ gives you a sense of mystique, before the record expands with ‘Kairos‘. The album’s thesis is evident here as voice, saxophone, electronics and environmental recordings combine to create a weightier blend. ‘Echoes‘ follows, giving the album one of its strongest rhythmic moments with brooding percussion and haunting vocals. The gorgeous ‘Circle’ drifts in with such delicate beauty that it leaves a glow hanging in the air. ‘Jealousea’, featuring longtime collaborator Alfa Mist, is an emotional, psychological track mapping the green-eyed monster of jealousy. Stripping things back to let a classic, acoustic alliance take centre stage. Alfa Mist provides intricate, fluid jazz piano foundations that intertwine with Misch’s expressive tones. Lithic was recorded across Cornwall, the Greek islands, Deptford and Dungeness, and at its best, it makes these landscapes part of the ensemble. Stones become percussion, caves act as natural reverberation chambers, and Misch’s breathy saxophone frequently dissolves into drones, rainfall and weathered electronics. What’s great about this album is that the deeper you go into it, the more it feels like you’re digging into ancient, fractured music that’s gradually being awakened by voice and breath. It is Misch’s most immersive and conceptually complete work yet; a strange and quietly transportive record that finds movement within stone. – GS
Gary Bartz & Your Brother’s Keeper – Where Rivers Meet
Where Rivers Meet documents a rare meeting between Gary Bartz‘s deep jazz lineage and the new London collective Your Brother’s Keeper. Led by Jake Long (drums), YBK features Ali MacSween (piano/synths/modular FX), Axel Kaner-Lidstrom (trumpet), Twm Dylan (double bass), Tim ‘Chiminyo’ Doyle (percussion), and Chelsea Carmichael (tenor saxophone). Cauldron opens the album with simmering intensity. Bartz’s alto arcs over drums, bass, and keys that feel both grounded and exploratory. Ground Loop is shorter and more direct. It uses a tight groove as a frame for conversational horn writing. Eclipse stands out as one of the album’s most luminous pieces. Harmonic shifts feel like passing clouds, and the ensemble listens closely to each change. Solar Flare pushes the energy higher, letting the trumpet and sax lean into the fire without losing control. Locris and Petrichor bring different shades of mood. One is tonally more angular. The other rolls in like rain on dry ground. Mantra closes the record with a long, slow build. It feels like a shared prayer shaped by decades of experience and new jazz urgency. – IA
(CF Smith – side note Bartz stole the show at We Out Here along with Arthur Verocai)
Alan Braufman – Anthem for Peace
Clearly, the 43-year hiatus from recording under his own name did Alan Braufman the world of good. Since the 2018 reissue of his debut record, there’s been no stopping the American jazz saxophonist, flautist, and composer. Since his official return in 2020 with The Fire Still Burns, we’ve had Infinite Love Infinite Tears in 2024. Braufman returns with Anthem for Peace, a studio set cut in a single day with Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Luke Stewart (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums). Moving between spiritual jazz, post-bop and eastern-tinged motifs, the quartet plays with real clarity and ease, giving the record both lightness and depth. This is all good stuff, but for me, it’s Brennan’s vibes that give it some extra oomph. Nice stuff! – CFS
Marshall Allen – 101: An Audio Odyssey
Marshall Allen, now clocking in at a sprightly 102, is clearly not interested in slowing down. If anything, he’s out here proving that age is just a number, especially when your soul is still bouncing off the walls. As the Sun Ra Arkestra’s chief cosmic navigator since the mighty Sun Ra passed, Allen isn’t glancing in the rearview mirror. With Jamaaladeen Tacuma at the controls (and bass), Allen ditches the usual Arkestra flight path for a wild joyride through funk, free jazz, and a swirl of electronic fizz, with a dream team featuring Nels Cline, Immanuel Wilkins, DM Hotep and more along for the trip. This album is a shape-shifter: one minute it’s strutting around in a groove that would even make electric Miles grin, the next it’s floating off into a horn-drenched nebula that only the Sun Ra family could conjure. Allen’s alto and EWI dart and weave through it all with the same mischief he’s always had, and the result feels like a party and a cosmic postcard rolled into one. For the faithful, it’s a thrill to see the journey still unfolding. For the uninitiated, consider this your invitation to the mothership. – BT
EP’s
Moses Yoofee Trio – CHASING LIGHT
Berlin’s Moses Yoofee Trio have been steadily rising since forming in 2020, and the quality of their output has only sharpened – CHASING LIGHT, their new EP, is another impressive step forward. Having snagged the prestigious German Jazz Prize for Best Live Act following breakout performances across clubs and European festival circuits. The trio of Moses Yoofee Vester (piano, keyboard, producer), Roman Klobe-Barangă (bass) and Noah Fürbringer (drums) distils the live energy of hours spent in their Neukölln rehearsal room, delivering their most instinctive and infectiously unrestrained record to date. From the breakbeat rush of NOTHING TO LOSE to the string‑lit title track, the afrobeat shuffle of INNER CIRCLES and the soulful hip‑hop swing of HONEST, the record shifts shape with ease. The trio is in fine form on the standout KRAUT, where they lock into tight, rhythmic interplay that gives the track its drive. Moses Yoofee Trio goes from strength to strength. – CFS
