Talk Show is a new duo collaboration featuring Steph Richards on trumpets and resonating surfaces and Qasim Naqvi on drums, almglocken bells and modular synthesizer. Having worked together on other projects for almost two decades, 'Miss America' marks their first, pure duo collaboration – a space to engage with a sonic language they’ve been cultivating together for years.

The album was recorded live, with Qasim crafting real-time electronics and drum set work, and Steph using trumpets and resonating percussion to summon sympathetic vibrations and otherworldly sounds through timpani, snare and water. The trumpet sounds electronically processed, though every sound is acoustic. Both artists wanted to retain the live nature of their process, so what you hear is virtually untouched.

Sharing an appetite for experimentalism, theatricality and irreverent collisions of sound and image, Qasim and Steph met in 2008 at CalArts- which was a breeding ground for open creative thought and cross disciplinary collaboration. Often working with directors in the theater program, choreographers, or experimental and character animators, Steph and Qasim’s musical language has a rooting in visual performance art. From their first premiere, costumed together inside a giant two-person dress sculpture that consumed a drum set, to their most recent 2025 audio visual nightmare which explores the horrors of 80s daytime reality talk shows, this duo presents a voice the grimy and the grotesque: a new beauty of questionable acts and character flaws in sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Royalties
2. Mom’s Night Out
3. Miss America
4. Soft As A Rock
5. Death Bed

The recording debut for the new duo of Finnish composer Lau Nau, aka Laura Naukkarinen, and American baritone saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson, it cycles between moments of knotty ambience, whispered melody, and innocent tinkering, as the duo improvises over 8 narrative scores composed by Parzen-Johnson. Jonah Parzen-Johnson says: “For me, telling a story is about more than sharing a set of facts. A well told story is the protective coating around our most intimate and universal feelings. Things too delicate to name. When I want to understand how someone makes me feel, I tell myself our story. There are familiar stories of family and friends, but the story of a quick moment with a stranger can sometimes be the most illuminating. A brief interaction whose fractional reflection helps us understand ourselves in a new way. ” “A lot of my musical practice is about trying to find that same storytelling sensation in the experience of performing. That’s how I got going on these narrative scores. Each one is a story you can read, but it's more than that, it's a trigger for a sensation. If all goes well, that’s what makes it into our improvisation. It might be tempting to ask to read the scores, but try to resist. This music isn’t about the stories, it's about how it feels to tell them."

Jonah Parzen-Johnson & Lau Nau are each prolific and celebrated creators on their own, with 22 albums released between the two of them, but in this fresh conversation, something completely new comes to life. In Laura’s words: “I enjoy recording live takes without overdubs, and this album is exactly that - pure first takes, bubbling creative energy happening in the moment. Jonah’s written stories gave a powerful spark and direction for our improvisations, but the album reminds me of a chemical reaction: a result that is impossible without both of our inputs, and a surprise to each of us. ” On the debut single, 'First Time Viewer', it is almost impossible to tell where Jonah’s fragile baritone saxophone melody begins and where Lau’s live-sampled, processed, and re-synthesized accompaniment ends. As the improvisation develops, a cloud of ethereal fragments forms into a lattice of melody and texture strong enough to support the entire track.

TRACK LISTING

1. Longtime Resident
2. Flight Attendant
3. Apologetic Inquirer
4. Co-Op Association
5. First Time Viewer
6. Calming Influencer
7. Bus Driver
8. Suspicious Commuter

Joona Toivanen Trio returns to We Jazz Records with their new album "Gravity", out 31 January 2025. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases the forward-looking sound of the band, moving way beyond the basic scope of the "piano trio". There’s a startling sense of telepathy and intimacy at work in the music of the Joona Toivanen Trio, something you can glean from the opening moments of their latest album, Gravity. It’s that rare synergy that can only come with years of time spent together onstage, in the rehearsal space, on tour throughout Europe, en route to the next show. To look at the discography of the Finish piano trio is to see a relationship that stretches back to the year 2000, when they self-released their first album, Numurkah. Only, the connection between pianist Joona Toivanen, drummer Olavi Louhivuori, and bassist Tapani Toivanen goes back even further.

“Tapani is my younger brother and we moved to a neighborhood in Jyväskylä in central Finland when I was seven,” Joona Toivanen says. And on my first day at school I met Olavi, who was in the same class as me!” Nowadays, the trio is geographically split between Gothenburg, Sweden (Joona), Copenhagen, Denmark (Tapani), and Helsinki, Finland (Olavi), but the unit sounds together as ever thanks to their extensive track record in developing their band sound.

TRACK LISTING

A1/1. Gravity
A2/2. Static Model
A3/3. Intersect
A4/4. Density
A5/5. Infinite Fields
A6/6. (Maybe In The) Future
B1/7. Rotating Dust
B2/8. Green Model
B3/9. Implications And Consequences
B4/10. Horizons
B5/11. Zero Gravity
B6/12. (In The) Past

Berlin-based Swedish bassist and producer Petter Eldh returns with a new Koma Saxo album Post Koma, out on We Jazz Records, 10 November. The title Post Koma aptly describes the vibe of this one: The Koma Saxo sound continues its evolution, morphing into a holistic vision of jazz now and soon, where live instrumentation and repurposed sampling lose their boundaries.

Over the course of its three iterations (self-titled debut in 2019, LIVE in 2020, Koma West in 2022) Koma Saxo has sounded at times "liquid" and postproduced, at times raw and direct, at times acoustic and at other times oddly electronic (even while still being made with acoustic instruments). Post Koma is a culmination of this sonic study by Eldh, resulting in a music vision that never second-guesses throwing tasty hooks and everlasting melodies out the window after a mere bite of them. But fear not: there are even more new ideas just around the corner.

Eldh's compositions and ideas merge together in a way that just flows. There are quality musicians in the mix, including Koma Saxo live band members Sofia Jernberg, Jonas Kullhammar, Otis Sandsjö, Mikko Innanen, Maciej Obara and Christian Lillinger, but that's like saying that a cake includes flour and sugar. This music is not about playing, it's essentially about how the music is and how it takes its shape, so you quickly lose track of who did what, and that's all in the benefit of encountering this music as an entity that is constantly challenging itself while moving forward. The musicians are valued contributors, and an integral part of what's here, but this is far from traditional jazz playing where a band sits in a room playing takes after takes of compositions on sheet.

That being said, this is jazz to the fullest. That is, music that understands its past but always moves forward, and is never afraid of taking risks. Petter Eldh uses jazz as a starting point, not the end goal. This gives his music edge and mobility beyond what can be contained on one album. In a way, an album, then, becomes a snapshot of a creative process in constant flux and evolution.

Opening track "Koma" is literally drum & bass. It only consists of those two elements, yet what comes out of it is an open invite, a way of clearing your palette. It would be useless to describe individual tracks beyond that, but there's a strong sense of deliverance to the set. It feels like an ending, and also like a new beginning.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm not a massive fan of jazz, honestly and while 'Post Koma' does on the surface present as a jazz LP, it unfolds as more of an exercise in rhythmic electronic music, using slivers of the the instruments that are often seen in jazz. It's mindblowingly deep and beautifully textured, crossing the boundaries of genre and instrumentation alike.

TRACK LISTING

A1.Koma
A2. Watten Koma
A3. Komma Hem
A4. Stundens Hetta
A5. Poly Amok
A6. Portal Koma
B1. Mittenmelodin I Erzeben
B2. Natt Koma
B3. Omkomma Hemma
B4. Eka Amok
B5. Koma Grav
B6. Sista Dansen
B7. Så Rinner