I’m not used to flatlands. I grew up in Rome, the capital, famous for its “seven hills”. My mother is Sicilian, a land renowned for the sheer variety of its landscapes.

So, driving from Rome to Precenicco, I eventually started to lose my bearings. Scottie McNiece, one of the founders of International Anthem, who was making the journey with me and my girlfriend, joked that the landscape outside the window reminded him of Indiana — the rural area south of Chicago.

And yet, by the time we arrived in the dry but lush Friulian plain, on the border with Veneto, my sense of disorientation had become his too. It was a decidedly peculiar setting for the first Italian showcase (on the 17 and 18 July) dedicated to International Anthem: the Chicago born label that, since 2014, has been rewriting the rules of contemporary experimental, improvised and creative music.

These lands in the province of Pordenone are the territory of Scenasonica, a curatorial project led by Claudio Scircoli. Since 2012, Claudio and his team have been bringing international avant-garde music to the flatlands. Their track record is impressive: Dowdeline, aya, Waq Waq Kingdom, Joasinho, Crack Cloud, Kassa Overall, Masma Dream World, Mouse on Mars, Nova Materia, Forest Swords, Tom Skinner, among others. Now this two days International Anthem showcase.

Pordenone and its surrounding province also have their own peculiar history of “oblique” music. In the Seventies, The Great Complotto emerged here, one of the most original laboratories of Italian punk and new wave. So original, in fact, that it managed to carve out its own space even within the “canonical” history of these genres in Italy. Scenasonica is a direct heir to that tradition: Scircoli was part of that original nucleus as a musician, and has carried forward the same uncompromising approach.

That sense of disorientation is shared by both the audience and the artists. Precenicco is one of those tiny towns that seem to consist of little more than a handful of houses scattered along one road. There is something absurd, and at the same time completely unique, about an Italian showcase for one of the hippest American labels around — the kind of label whose artists usually play glittering theatres in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London and Berlin — taking place here. It’s like we are here, in the middle of nowhere, waiting for Godot.

The locals seem largely unaware of what is going on. The waiters at the only restaurant complain about people speaking English. Dogs bark furiously from behind garden gates at the sight of so many strangers wandering around; their owners eventually emerge, visibly annoyed, to ask what the hell is happening. The last two, as you may have gathered, are “true stories”.

The feeling of being suspended inside a lucid dream is amplified by the heat and, of course, by the music. Over the course of forty-eight hours, we see Ben LaMar Gay, Alabaster De Plume, Kalia Vandever, Gregory Uhlmann, Ruth Goller and Ibellisse Guardia Ferragutti perform live. Six of the most distinctive musicians in International Anthem’s sprawling catalogue, and six of its most collaborative and audacious voices.

The first day opens with Ibellisse Guardia Ferragutti’s solo performance, somewhere between music and performance art. A multidisciplinary artist, she places her Latin American roots — spanning Bolivia and Brazil — at the centre of her practice, before letting them branch out in every possible direction, particularly through field recordings, loops and electronic beats. She began her set by telling everyone that in Bolivia, the past is what you see in front of you, and the future is behind you. Then she invited everyone to walk back backwards with her around the stage. A powerful introduction. Scottie told me afterwards that for him it was “one of the highlights of the whole weekend” Her energy and charisma on stage are exactly what is needed to set this journey into motion. Together with her husband Frank Rosaly, Ibelisse is behind “MESTIZX”, a beautiful avant-Latin-jazz album released in 2024 by IA.

A very quick stop to pick up some mosquito repellent and some fried goodies, and Kalia Vandever takes the stage — one of the latest additions to the IA family, following the release last June of her album “Mana”. Once again performing solo, her trombone traces melancholic atmospheres, moving through backing tracks whose defining quality is their emotional charge. A delicate sound, yet one capable of commanding a room — in this case, a small open-air stage in a strange garden in Precenicco — through the sheer force of its sensitivity and vulnerability.

We’re still dazed and slightly dreamlike from her performance when Alabaster De Plume’s full band takes the stage. The English elf has spent the whole evening wandering among the crowd, carrying that otherworldly, magical air that has become his trademark.

On stage, however, he transforms into an electric shard, gripping his saxophone as if it were constantly trying to escape in the opposite direction. He holds it against his side, the mouthpiece angled into his mouth like the pipe of an old sailor, while sketching out phrases that resemble sonic mandalas. Much of their power comes from the exceptional work of the band, capable of suddenly kicking up thunderous punk dynamics before quieting down and making room for moments of introspection, alongside a series of recitations, both moving and hilarious — “OK, now we are going to fuck off. That’s what we do for work: fucking off.”

The next day, we take the morning slowly, recovering from the seven-plus-hour drive. I still have the opening of Scottie’s DJ set from the night before ringing in my ears: Battiato, followed by baroque music played at full volume.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m living inside a waking dream. My girlfriend and I drag ourselves around the agriturismo, stopping to pet farm animals, and an hour later we find ourselves in the middle of the lagoon, standing in an actual swamp and watching flamingos from a small hut built for birdwatching.

The weather has turned. Rain is threatening, so everything is moved indoors, to Precenicco’s brand-new theatre: a sort of spaceship in the desert, as if — with all due proportions — Madison Square Garden had somehow been built alongside an obscure road in Mississippi.

We arrive slightly late (we had to beg the woman at the restaurant to serve us against her better judgement; she was stressed out by the “tourists”) and, after downing a glass of prosecco, rush inside to hear Gregory Uhlmann. A very original guitarist and member of the extraordinary supergroup SML, Gregory delivers a solo performance built around the music of his debut album, “Extra Stars”: a beautiful journey through surprising sounds, most of them produced by his guitar, which, in fact, never really sounds like a guitar. The same is true of the live performance, where loops and effects turn the six-string into a synthesiser over which Gregory improvises inside barely sketched-out structures.

A cigarette and another prosecco, accompanied by a few words with Scottie and Felix, who works for International Anthem’s European distributor — !K7. Felix is English but lives in Berlin, and coming here has been quite a surprise for him. He tells us how he had to practically force the owner of his B&B to give him a lift, otherwise he would have had no idea how to get to the venue. I wonder what must be going through the minds of the non-Italian audience members (there are two Asian guys wandering around on their own; someone says they were spotted the night before walking along a state road, possibly lost. Claudio will later tell us they’re actually from Paris) as they find themselves suddenly catapulted into this quintessentially Italian provincial world, so deeply marked by the landscape and atmosphere of the Po Valley.

The concerts run on time, if anything slightly ahead of schedule, so it’s time to rush back inside for the trio led by Ruth Goller, who is also Alabaster De Plume bass player. Goller is perhaps the only musician here who had some idea of where she was coming to play. She has been based in London for most of her life, but grew up in the tiny town of Bressanone, in the autonomous Italian province of South Tyrol. “SKYLLUMINA”, her 2024 album for International Anthem, is a beautiful journey in which her crooked, tonally ambiguous bass becomes the guiding force behind the listening experience and the interplay, moving between post-punk, avant-jazz and electronics. The same thing happens live: compressed, dynamic, a wonderfully solid monolith.

We’ve reached the end.

The cherry on top of these two days is the performance by Ben LaMar Gay’s ensemble. A truly unique artist, a cornerstone of the label and of that Chicago musical continuum that stretches from the AACM to the present day. Every record he makes is surprising, and every live show is a unique, cathartic experience.

His performance in Precenicco was conceptual and abstract, perhaps more so than many had expected. More than an hour of music (Ben repeatedly “threatened” to play for four hours, wearing a gleefully wicked grin) fuelled by a kind of anger that felt both unfamiliar and open to interpretation. If we accept the cliché that artists are antennas, capable of picking up the vibrations of whatever surrounds them — both in the immediate present and at a broader, macroscopic social and political level — then this anger seems not only justified to me, but an actual gift. A difficult one, complicated to unwrap. But certainly beautiful and, most of all, meaningful.

We end the night in the rain, talking with Paolo from Pentagon Booking and with Scottie. The rain is helping us coming back to reality.

There haven’t been many opportunities for socialising: we’ve all been scattered across the countryside, with no bars or places of that kind around. So we take this hour to gather our thoughts, say our goodbyes and prepare for the long journey home. Two days of wonderful music in a completely unexpected setting. From the moment we arrived, it feels as though we’ve been holding our breath underwater, only now finally coming back up for air.

Ben Lamar Gay’s final performance feels like the perfect summary of these two days — with all its explicit and implicit meanings.

I’ve promised this more than once, and finally, here we are.

Shhh/Peaceful was born as a long-form music newsletter, before gradually opening up to event curation and eventually becoming a tape label. All of it completely independently.

Today, I finally want to take stock of the first season of curation. Months filled with surprises, satisfactions, setbacks and small and big milestones. Rome has always been the operational base, but thanks to the help and collaboration of several different people and realities, I’ve travelled across Italy, connecting with different cities, spaces and communities. A few lines to look back at it all.

The journey kicked off with a bang, organising the Italian tour of Aquiles Navarro in collaboration with Chullu Agency and Atlantico Fest. On 22, 23 and 24 October 2025, the Panamanian trumpeter and Irreversible Entanglements member presented a special solo live set featuring unreleased music, travelling between Rome, Milan and Bologna.

This was followed, on 8 November 2025, by the concert of Berke Can Özcan & Jonah Parzen-Johnson — a musical conversation between Turkey and the United States, released by WeJazz Records, and a meeting of two musicians with an improvisational talent that has few equals. Hosted by our friends at Kina in Rome.

Then came one of the real highlights of the season: the Italian debut of the magical duo of Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer, released by International Anthem. Shhh/Peaceful curated their mini-tour between Rome and Milan, in collaboration with Chullu Agency, on 15 and 16 November 2025. The event also marked the beginning of a beautiful collaboration with Studio 33, the iconic hi-fi listening space in the heart of Trastevere, Rome. Here is the full live session

Before getting there, though, came three dates at what had become Shhh/Peaceful’s other home and operational base: Trenta Formiche.

On 2 December 2025, together with Sara Castiglioni, S/P brought together Pakistani bansuri player Daniyal Ahmed — specialising in Hindustani music, from ‘classical’ traditions to various ‘folk’ styles — and Madhava Carrara, a musician and instrument maker known as one of the finest gong makers in the world through his Grotta Sonora project. They met on stage for a one-of-a-kind concert: a transcendental experience moving across continents, musical traditions and vibrations.

Then, to inaugurate the new year, on 3 January 2026 it was time to host Sabine Salame, a journalist and therapist from Beirut, Lebanon. She writes and performs rap in Arabic, making music that reflects situations she has experienced first-hand — from social inequality and life in an apocalyptic Beirut to confronting different forms of trauma. Her dark and ironic style is echoed in the production of her tracks, wonderfully experimental and claustrophobic: a journey into the best of contemporary rap, seen through an Arabic lens.

The final date of the season at Trenta Formiche, on 6 March, was truly special. Shhh/Peaceful hosted Nate Mercereau for his Italian debut tour, organised by Chullu Agency. A Los Angeles-based guitarist and producer, Nate has collaborated with pretty much everyone: André 3000, Carlos Niño, Josh Johnson, Lizzo, Sam Gendel, Idris Ackamoor, The Weeknd, Jay-Z, Kamasi Washington. A true multi-instrumentalist, as well as a producer, songwriter and composer working across multiple genres and sonic worlds, Mercereau’s traditional and non-traditional approaches speak to the infinite energetic, spiritual and creative potentials that Nate hears and lives.

Let’s go back now to Studio 33, and to a collaboration that has continued to grow over the months. On 14 March, we began a series of live shows and afternoon gatherings with a showcase by the English label All Night Flight Records, featuring live performances by Jemima and Esse Pi Enne, alongside a selection by the absolutely cult curatorial duo Time Is Away. The day before, on 13 March, there had also been a preview at Rhizome, with a live set by La Festa Delle Rane and a DJ set by Tom from All Night Flight Records.

After that, the paths of Shhh/Peaceful once again crossed with those of American saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson. For his duo with Finnish musician Lau Nau, S/P organised the Italian tour of their album released by We Jazz Records, between 13 and 19 April. Five stops across the country: Rome — once again at Studio 33, on 19 April — Milan, Perugia, Bolzano and Correzzola. Below is the full live session at Studio 33.

That same day, Shhh/Peaceful also joined forces with Chullu Agency to present the Roman show by Lero Lero at Pianeta Sonoro.

Lero Lero were also Shhh/Peaceful’s first record release.

The relationship with Studio 33 continued with two more special appointments. On 22 April, we presented “La prima musica” by Nicolò Porcelluzzi: a unique listening session — almost a live podcast — exploring the origins of language through the lenses of palaeontology and ethnomusicology. A project presented exclusively here and at Triennale Milano.

Finally, the season came to an end with a real gem, the cherry on top: an exclusive listening session with Scottie McNiece, co-founder of and spiritual guiding force behind International Anthem. An absolutely unique event — the first in Italy and one of the first of its kind in Europe. Scottie retraced the label’s recent releases and its history, in conversation with me, while also playing previously unreleased music. The full A/V recording of the experience will be released soon.

A few scattered thoughts.

Organising more than ten events of this kind alone and completely independently has been a challenge. Obviously, none of this would have been possible without the collaboration of all the different realities I’ve worked with, and, most importantly, the people who make them what they are. My deepest thanks go to Trenta Formiche, Giuseppe, Chullu Agency, Paolo and Clara, Studio 33, Enzo, Kina, Andrea, Atlantico Fest, Pianeta Sonoro, Marco Folco, Rhizome, Sacred Noise (Fabrizio), Sara Castiglioni. I’m certainly forgetting several people, and I apologise for that. Thank you to all the djs and selectors of these events: Federico Zanghì, Marco Folco, Strada, Luca Collepiccolo, Pearl River Sound, Enzo Abbate.

Thank you also to all the many people who took an interest in the project and the programme, and to projects and people such as Battiti (Chiara Colli), Trasformativa, Roman Radar, Zero.eu and Pino Saulo, who have talked about it with generosity and consistency. Obviously, a huge thank you to the audience.

And finally, of course, to the artists.

I’m ecstatic to think that with most of them, a relationship of friendship, mutual understanding and support has developed. I hope this can be the first building block for long and lasting collaborations. This is, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I’m taking away from this first season of curation.

The less positive side of things is also the one that forces me to confront some necessary reflections. This year, I didn’t make a single euro from curating and organising these events. On the contrary, I actually lost a bit of money. This was a model I had anticipated for this first phase. But I also know that it is not sustainable for the new season and, more broadly, for the future of Shhh/Peaceful.

The state of the Italian cultural economy is tragic. The situation in Rome is particularly dire: 2026/27 will be a very difficult year for all. I hope I can still find the energy and the space to curate events of this kind — hopefully increasingly beautiful, ambitious, thoughtful and devoted to bringing creative music to the ears of as many people as possible.

To do so, I’ll need support.

It would be incredibly important to receive some of it here, through the newsletter, perhaps by taking out a paid subscription. On my side, I will do everything I can to find public or private funding and make the most of it.

I sincerely hope this is only the beginning.

Thank you all!

Cheb Runner, whose real name is Reda Senhaji, is a Moroccan producer and DJ from Agadir, now based in Belgium. His music explores the richness of traditional Moroccan music through a contemporary lens, blending it with electronic productions and a strong club-oriented approach.

On his latest album, “80K”, he takes this research to a new level, crafting irresistible tracks in which field recordings, production, instinct, and composition come together to create music that, at the same time, is rhythmically complex and accessible.

The album was recently released by Italian label Beat Machine Records as the second release in their “Terra Tempo” series, which aims to redefine the boundaries of global sound by blending the rich traditions of cultural music with the dynamic energy of modern club beats.

I asked Reda a few questions by email, discussing cultural heritage, clubs, Morocco, and his production techniques.

What are your earliest memories connected to music?

They come from a wide variety of places and times. The first and most obvious is my family, where we were constantly surrounded by sounds and music. And the most memorable, I think, are the moments spent with friends making traditional instruments using recycled objects from household waste or building sites.

When did you start playing and producing?

I started playing music as a child, mostly on the streets of Ihchach in Agadir with friends, either using instruments or everyday objects, in the empty garages of certain houses (which had a reverberation which made the sound very interesting to us) or even on various car parts that had distinctive resonances. My production work came about after I discovered music softwares and wanted to translate the rhythms I had in mind using those tools. I devoted a great deal of attention to learning and developing the technical skills needed to adapt the software to my vision of blending electronic music with Moroccan rhythms.

When was the Cheb Runner project born?

I think it came about after a long period of reflection on my musical approach, including the sounds I use. I suppose Cheb Runner was born out of the need to explore different rhythmic and sonic horizons; it doesn’t fit easily into a single box, but into several different ones. The music, rhythms and sounds that surround us can take on different physical forms and defy any standard.

Can you tell me about the artists, albums, and sounds that have most influenced your approach to composition/production?

I’ve always been convinced that it all starts with discovering modern music and recognising the traditional rhythms it has drawn upon. There’s always one artist that comes to mind: the drummer and artist Karim Ziad. He has been influenced by a variety of sources, adapting North African rhythms as well as other drumming styles, not to mention all the artists who have helped to modernise Amazigh music through the use of machines, or even the great Mahmoud Guinia — who experimented extensively with other musicians — Amazigh music has found a new way of expressing its anti-slavery and anti-colonial.

How does your career as a producer influence your work as a DJ, and vice versa?

For me, DJing is a form of sharing, and production plays a major role in artistic expression. DJing also allows me to share things that I might not necessarily produce as a musician, as I have my own direction and feel that my approach to sharing is increasingly leaning towards modular hardware set-ups for creating and performing live.

How would you describe the Souss Massa Darâa region to someone who is not Moroccan? What are its distinctive characteristics?

As far as I’m concerned, the Souss-Massa-Daraa region has that mystical and mysterious side; it’s a gateway on the edge of the desert that takes you by surprise. It has its harsh and gentle sides, just as it can be both cold and hot. Geographically speaking it’s the region situated in the centre of Morocco, between the north and the south, and it opens out onto beautiful coastal beaches.

How do your tracks usually come about? From a rhythmic cell that you expand, from inspiration drawn from your surroundings, or from things you listen to and read that eventually take the form of music?

Generally, the tracks are the result of listening experiences in various contexts, such as recordings of street musicians — which I love to archive — or, more recently, a mountain of cassettes I’ve bought or vinyl records. Apart from that, there’s the sound processing of percussion using machines or software to add color. Ultimately, this leads to a collision with elements of electronic music, which brings that club vibe or perhaps something playful when played out on sound systems.

Can you take me inside the electronic and music scene in Morocco? Where do people play, what kind of music is played, how is it organized, who makes up the audience, whether there is a mainstream and an underground scene, and so on?

There are quite a few initiatives to bring electronic music to Morocco. Some venues allow DJs and musicians to share their vision, as well as alternative trends within the scene. For example, I’ve been invited by the producer Guedra Guedra to the events he organizes and curates at Kabana in Marrakech. There are also other venues that facilitate collaborations of this kind, if we compare to how things used to be. And we mustn’t forget certain festivals, both past and present. I suppose this is a process of development and experimentation that is gradually taking place in the Moroccan music scene.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about Moroccan music among people who don’t know the scene, the cities, the musicians, and the clubs in Morocco?

It is important to know that Morocco is home to a multitude of tribes; it was the final stop for caravans traveling from the African continent and from Asia. Consequently, one must consider the immigration of a wide variety of cultures and the interplay between them: this is what has given rise to Morocco’s multifaceted rhythms. Each region, town or village relies on its own resources and methods to find its own rhythms and narratives for every situation or context.

Can you tell me about the Foundation (A)WAKE?

(A)wake was founded in response to the need for representation of the North African and Arab community in Rotterdam. Every two years, we organize a festival called New Radicalism, alternating in the following year with Heritage Studios, a learning and exchange program. Through these initiatives, we seek to research and experiment from our experiences as members of the diaspora and as immigrants. Our aim is to uncover hidden connections and critically reflect on our artistic and philosophical choices within the context of Western societies.

When and how did your connection with Beat Machine Records come about?

This collaboration began when Guedra Guedra introduced us, following Beat Machine Records’ interest in discovering Moroccan and Mediterranean composers, producers, and musicians. After a series of meetings, we worked on developing a concept for both the creative process and the artistic direction. This also motivated me to push the project further and develop a stronger conceptual framework that could meet its artistic ambitions and expectations.

Is 80k a destination or a starting point for you? What are your next plans?

80K is one of the central projects—and a guiding concept—that has shaped my musical and artistic journey since I began making music. I see it as part of a long-term vision: to continue exploring the possibilities of 6/8 rhythmic structures and to further integrate this rhythmic language into electronic and club music, creating compositions that come to life through powerful sound systems. Looking ahead, I am developing a number of new projects, both collaborative and solo, that will expand this exploration into new creative territories. These future works will not only deepen my musical practice but also engage with other artistic disciplines and forms of expression.

Some time ago, I announced that Shhh/Peaceful was evolving also into a small independent label—more specifically, a tape label.

The first release was a co-production with Panta Records and Black Sweat Records: the outstanding album by the Palermo-based collective Lero Lero, which received critical acclaim both in Italy and internationally.

Today marks Shhh/Peaceful’s first standalone release: “Variazioni D’Ambiente Vol. 1” by Walter Laureti. (For a funny mix up in the release date Lero Lero’s record come out first but has the catalog number 02. That makes Walter’s record S/P catalog number 01!)

“Variazioni d’Ambiente” is a project by Walter Laureti built around a series of musical atlases: sound environments created through tape recorders, on which different musicians are invited to intervene freely. The recordings are then reworked through live sampling and re-sampling techniques, imagining new and immersive soundscapes.

“Variazioni d’Ambiente Vol. 1” inaugurates the first chapter of a series structured across four volumes. In these episodes, sixteen musical realities engage with these atlases, generating sonic hybrids balanced between roots music, acoustic dimensions, and electronic experimentation. The four protagonists of this first release are: Les Biologistes Marins, Giorgio Distante, Leonardo Lucibelli, and Davide Ambrogio.

Each chapter will be released as a limited-edition cassette, forming a collectible series in which every volume is interconnected with the others on musical, aesthetic, and conceptual levels. The cassette design, concept and artwork are curated by Francesco D’Agrippino.

About Walter:

Walter Laureti is a truly special human being. He thinks in music, not about music. Everything he does is driven by a desire to create sonic experiences, both in and beyond composition, crafted with care, creativity, and a genuine love for music.

Throughout his career, he has collaborated with international artists and institutions, presenting his work in contexts such as the Sydney Biennale, the Festival d’Avignon, and the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.

As a producer, he has collaborated with leading musicians from the Italian folk and oral tradition scene, including Davide Ambrogio, Mauro Durante, and Enza Pagliara, as well as international artists such as Emily Jacir and Raúl Refree, contributing to the development of languages that bring musical heritage into dialogue with contemporary practices.

He regularly works with the world of dance and contemporary performance, developing sound projects for companies and artists such as Collectif XY, Andrea De Siena, Delfina Stella, Pablo Pérez Alonso, and Macula Performing Arts.

A specialist in spatial audio and Ambisonics systems, he creates immersive sound installations and interactive performances. His live sampling and live remix practices are rooted in his formative years in Norway, where he came into contact with Jan Bang and the Nordic electronic music scene, from which he inherited an approach to composition based on improvisation, attentive listening, and the real-time transformation of sound.

So yeah, dive into this madness, support it on Bandcamp and watch out for any Shhh/Peaceful’s new moves. Lots to talk about in the near future, after a little summer break!

If you ask Google what Gaeta is famous for, the search engine will answer: “Gaeta is famous for its ten kilometres of coastline, with fine, golden sand interspersed with small bays and rocky outcrops.” And it’s absolutely true. This little town, about two hours from Rome, boasts incredible beaches, mouth-watering local food, a stunning old town, and all the classic charms of an Italian seaside destination.

What Google won’t immediately tell you is that, for eighteen years, Gaeta has also been home to a festival bringing the best of global hybrid jazz. Gaeta Jazz Festival is special precisely because it isn’t something an algorithm will instantly reveal. The only way to understand how unique it is, is to actually go there — and trust me, everyone who has experienced it once, always comes back.

Gaeta Jazz Festival has an impressive pedigree. Since 2008, its stage has hosted legendary figures and artists who were once bold bets (and later proved to be winning ones): Robert Glasper, Yussef Dayes, Theo Croker, Yazz Ahmed, Kassa Overall, Wayne Snow, Rosa Brunello, Tommaso Cappellato, Daymé Arocena, Nu Genea and many others — especially talents from the Italian scene, who have found here a place where their music could truly shine. For the 2026 edition, running from July 9th to 12th, the lineup is rich and diverse, moving between avant-garde and tradition, jazz and electronics, established names and emerging talents.

For me, some of the brightest highlights are the presence of saxophone prodigy Venna, a collaborator of Burna Boy (with whom he won a Grammy), Beyoncé, Kali Uchis, Wizkid, Knucks, J Hus and Youssef Dayes, just to name a few. In 2025 he finally released his awaited debut album, “MALIK”, an instant success rooted in nu-jazz, soul, r&b, rap and alternative, featuring vocals from Jorja Smith, Cari, Leon Thomas, Smino, MIKE. The album also features a long list of musicians including Rocco Palladino, Elijah Fox, AoD, J Warner, Marco Bernardis and longtime collaborator, Yussef Dayes.

I’m also very happy to find on stage the powerful elegance of Australian singer Allysha Joy, a staple in the modern day jazz-soul scene with support from the likes of Gilles Peterson & Jamz Supernova (BBC 6 Music), Jamie Cullum (BBC Radio 2), China Moses (Jazz FM) & Laurent Garnier (PBBFrance), along with stations such as NTS, Lot Radio, KEXP, KCRW & FIP Radio and publications including OkayPlayer, Dazed and The Vinyl Factory. On the live circuit, Joy has performed alongside the likes of PJ Morton, Snarky Puppy, Ezra Collective, The Teskey Brothers and KOKOROKO to name a few, as well as performing at notable festivals such as We Out Here, Montreux Jazz Festival and New York Winter. She is known both for her solo work and as the front woman of 30/70.

Another highly anticipated performance is the live set by Apulian producer Jolly Mare. He will present his new album for 42 Records, a very special project built around the reworking of recordings by the legendary Piero Umiliani, in the year celebrating the centenary of the great composer’s birth. It’s the best Italian library music around that meets a dreamt, cosmic dance approach. A match made in (italian) heaven.

But also: DJ sets from veteran Danilo Plessow (MCDE), local hero GNRM, the live performance of Godblesscomputers, Addict Ameba and much, much more. Above all one of the most beloved traditions of the festival: the legendary sunrise concert by the sea — this year entrusted to veteran Italian vibraphonist Pasquale Mirra.

Shhh/Peaceful is very happy to be media and content partner of Gaeta Jazz Festival. During those days, I will record three audio podcast interviews, with the precious and essential production of Rhizome. It will be the chance to meet the artists in their natural element — the stage — before or after their performances, capturing the energy of those about to step on or who have just stepped off, exploring each artist’s journey and diving deeper into the themes that matter to Shhh/Peaceful, in the best possible setting.

Tickets for Gaeta Jazz Festival are still available on the festival website. See you there — somewhere between a swim in the sea and an incredible concert! Full program below.

PROGRAMME

Thursday, July 9

8:30 PM @ Batteria La Favorita
Arabella Rustico Trio
G.M. Trio

Friday, July 10

6:30 PM @ Grotta Del Turco
Special Event – PIME Centenary Celebration
Daniele Tittarelli “A Saxophone Inside the Cave”

7:00 PM @ Giardini dei Bastioni di Carlo V
Strada
Allysha Joy
Venna
GodBlessComputers

11:00 PM @ Stadio Riciniello – Aftershow
GNRM (DJ set)

Saturday, July 11

7:00 PM @ Giardini dei Bastioni di Carlo V
Edoardo Rosi
Admiral
Arya
Giorgio Poi
with strings

11:00 PM @ Stadio Riciniello
Danilo Plessow (MCDE)

Sunday, July 12

4:45 AM @ Batteria La Favorita
Sunrise Concert: Pasquale Mirra “Moderately Solo”

7:00 PM @ Giardini dei Bastioni di Carlo V
EDISTANT
Jolly Mare
Gabriele Poso
Addict Ameba

It’s that time of year again. The days are absurdly long and suddenly quite hot, while the holidays still feel like a mirage. If you’re like me, you’re probably sleepy and tired all the time, but at the same time, you’re starting to feel a beautiful and almost inexplicable warmth inside. All of this can only mean one thing: summer is almost here.

Whether you want to embrace the sleepiness or fight it, whether you’re already dreaming of the sea breeze or would rather linger a little longer in the cool weather, this list of albums is perfect for every mood.

They are a random selection, mostly recent records spanning jazz and electronic music, pop and experimental sounds. For me, each of them captures this transitional feeling we’re all experiencing, thanks to their beauty and atmosphere.

Hang on tight and listen to some amazing music in the meantime: summer is almost here!

Jeff Parker ETA IVtet – The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)

I’m not sure there’s a piece of music played or composed by Jeff Parker that I don’t love. His output for International Anthem, in particular, has been astonishing: a run of albums, each remarkable in its own way, each revealing new shades of an artist who has done more than almost anyone in recent years to reshape the DNA of jazz and the creative music orbiting around it. This is the third chapter in the story of the ETA Quartet, a group born out of a residency at the now-defunct Enfield Tennis Academy and gradually transformed from a vehicle for standards into the endlessly inventive ensemble heard on its previous releases. Featuring drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson, this latest album from Parker’s now fully matured quartet is pure joy. Groove, collective improvisation, moments of abstraction: free musicians offering flashes of the very best of human creativity in spite of the bleak times we live in.

Horatio Luna – ACTION REACTION (La Sape Records)

Australian bassist, producer, and composer Horatio Luna returns with an album perfectly tailored to the transition from spring into summer. House and jazz are fused in the finest dancefloor tradition, yet Luna’s attention to songwriting ensures that this feels like a fully realised album rather than simply a collection of DJ tools destined for club rotation. The Australian scene is still very much alive and kicking it!

Upupayāma – Honesty Flowers (Fuzz Club Records)

More than an hour of psychedelic exploration from Italian multi-instrumentalist Alessio Ferrari. Desert rock collides with ethnic mirages and serpentine guitar lines. Ferrari writes, performs, and records everything himself—guitars, keyboards, flute, sitar, and a vast arsenal of percussion all play a role. The result is an intoxicating tangle of sounds, one of those albums that makes you wish you owned a convertible so you could drive down a sun-scorched coastal highway with the sea rolling by beside you.

Macie Stewart – Mouth Full of Glass (Orindal Records)

This 2021 album remains an absolute gem, full of songwriting as delicate as the first warm winds of summer. Americana and folk are woven together with masterful string arrangements, gorgeous vocal melodies, and a harmonic imagination that frequently ventures into unexpectedly progressive territory. A composer, multi-instrumentalist, and indispensable collaborator across countless projects, Stewart —born in 1993—is undoubtedly one of the most innovative and compelling musicians working in the American scene today. Her recent trio album with Whitney Johnson and Lia Kohl only reinforces that status.

Panoram – Pianosequenza Vol. 2 (Union Editions)

This record is the sound of a piano dreaming about itself. Seventeen lysergic thought-cells, keys darting away at speed before suddenly expanding and contracting, interrupted by sounds that seem to emerge from nowhere. They feel like characters inhabiting a dream world drifting weightlessly through the clouds depicted on the cover: seventeen miniature conversations experienced with closed eyes and open ears. A small delight that follows a string of excellent releases from Panoram—special mention goes to 2022’s “Acrobatic Thoughts”—but one that achieves an especially original synthesis here: introspective, experimental, and yet immediately inviting.

Sharada Shashidhar – A Foot on the Ground (Colorfield Records)

The artist herself may have provided the perfect description: “a new beat-oriented spiritual jazz.” Based in Los Angeles, Sharada Shashidhar blends jazz and Indian classical music into melodies that are sophisticated yet welcoming, rich in detail yet effortlessly accessible. With an impressive résumé that includes international festivals and collaborations with artists such as Nightmares on Wax, Carlos Niño, and the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, she delivers a debut that is convincing from every angle—one that feels less like an arrival than the beginning of an exciting new chapter.

Sergio Prudencio – Antología 1/2: Obras para la Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos (Buh Records)

These two albums deserve an article of their own. Lima-based label Buh Records gathers the work of La Paz composer Sergio Prudencio, documenting a decades-long project rooted in the incorporation of Aymara musical traditions into contemporary composition. As the excellent liner notes explain, the work is built not only around ensembles of native Andean instruments—sikus, tarkas, mohoceños, pinkillos, wankaras, seeds, and drums—but also around three structural principles that govern Aymara music: arca-ira, the alternation of sounds between two musicians; tropa, the formation of large instrumental ensembles and the amplification of sound; and wakiña, the concept of collective strength. The result is a body of contemporary music that feels both innovative and deeply haunted, perhaps one of the most compelling sonic manifestations of hauntology in recent memory.

Tara Clerkin Trio – Somewhere Good (World of Echo)

Trip-hop never really went away, but there’s no denying that the genre has experienced a powerful resurgence in recent years. Six years after their debut album—and following a pair of EPs in between—the Bristol trio return with a record that merges the dark sensuality of classic trip-hop with light-footed, inventive pop songwriting. The result is an album suited to almost any occasion: late-night drives, bright mornings with coffee in hand, or long contemplative walks.

Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti – Almost Waking (TAR / MM / UOH)

A meeting of generations through strings: six belonging to veteran American experimental guitarist Bill Orcutt, four to the cello of the now internationally acclaimed Guatemalan musician Mabe Fratti. Ten strings in total—a fittingly perfect number for thirty minutes of music that is itself perfectly imperfect. Call it folk, experimental songwriting, avant-pop—whatever label feels most convenient. What matters is that it’s a record of disarming, timeless beauty, at once simple and complex, intimate and expansive.

Raül Refree & Maria Mazzotta – San Paolo di Galatina (Galileo Music Communication)

A programmatic title. The Chapel of Saint Paul in Galatina—known as the Chapel of the Tarantate—is an eighteenth-century site closely linked to the phenomenon of Tarantism. It was here that the ritual healing ceremonies of the so-called tarantate traditionally reached their conclusion, following the now-famous performance of possession and release. Maria Mazzotta is one of the foremost interpreters of Southern Italian folk music, and for this celebration of the traditional songbook of Puglia she joins forces with Catalan guitarist and producer Raül Refree, known both for producing Rosalía’s debut album and for his pioneering reimagination of what is often called “world music.” Expect an ancestral journey between the ancient and the modern, guided by Mazzotta’s pathos-filled voice and Refree’s moving, minimalist arrangements, where guitar and electronics intertwine in striking fashion.

It feels a bit like standing inside a vast cavern. We stare calmly into the dark void, while every so often it answers back with sounds that seem to rise directly from the earth’s depths: harrowing, mesmerizing cries, always unexpected. Around us, meanwhile, a swarm of tiny creatures scurries and pulses — an anthill of disordered sounds somehow orchestrated to perfection.

This is the sensation evoked by the music of She’s Analog. Stefano Calderano (guitar, percussion), Luca Sguera (piano, prophet synth, percussion) and Giovanni Iacovella (drums, electronics) have been playing together for nearly a decade. Following their 2020 debut “What I Bring, What I Leave”, they returned five years later with “no longer, not yet”.

The new record expands on a path shaped by avant-jazz, post-punk and rock, sparse electronics, and a sonic and timbral research that has few equals. Compared to the debut, this second album — which turns one year old these days — feels less abrasive and more contemplative: deeper, more mature. It’s a record to get deliciously lost inside, a cascade of constantly shifting sonic images that resist being fully grasped, and are all the more magnetic and stimulating because of it.

I caught up with the trio to celebrate the album’s first anniversary and to hear about their creative process, influences, origins, and the context in which they move.

I’d start with the classic opening question: when, how, and why was She’s Analog born?

According to Luca’s account — which the three of us have by now fully embraced as the “foundational myth” — She’s Analog was born in Siena in the summer of 2018 at Luca’s house, two days before he moved to Copenhagen. It came into being in the most natural way possible: through a long afternoon jam session followed by dinner in the patio of what has by now become this mythological house, outside the city walls. We can say that She’s Analog was born without any precise reason: it was born because it was born. And from that moment on, things became interesting: tours before we even had the slightest amount of material to show promoters; stages where we experimented wildly, confronting audiences from the very beginning without any safety net, creating a language entirely our own. The writing of the first record, the rehearsals we never actually had during those years of physical distance, and that indefinable something we slowly built together over time.

Your debut album came out in 2020, the last one in 2025. Was it five years spent composing it, or five years spent forgetting the last record and pursuing separate paths before reuniting with a “new” approach?

Five years waiting for the right groove! Figuratively speaking, because making a second record meant confronting everything we had done up to that point and transforming it into something new. That required time, discussions, writing attempts, steps forward and backward, pauses and fresh starts. Years in which, on stage, we played driven by the need to explore the trio as an organism rather than the algebraic sum of three individuals — and during which the necessity of translating all of that into a new record gradually emerged. The decisive push came one day while improvising: we suddenly started playing an abstract groove (the one you hear in the second half of “tingle”). We were surprised, amused, and curious, like children. It also took five years to discover the method through which this album eventually came to life: a meticulous process of sound collage and pre-production built around recorded material, something that completely overturned our approach to live performance as well. So, once we laid the foundations for the construction of the album, there followed an almost philological process of trying to reproduce as faithfully as possible what we had composed, using the tools and possibilities offered by the recording studio.

In jazz, punk, and rock, the trio format is sacred and has produced some of the most innovative bands and beautiful music in each of those genres. How did you come to define yourselves in this lineup and with this instrumentation? Did you have any references?

As we were saying, we increasingly experienced the trio as a single organism, guided by the conviction that we could find a broader sound and meaning by acting as a group rather than individual musicians sharing the same stage. From a technical point of view, this led us to investigate timbral possibilities. We’re often told that it’s impossible to tell who’s playing what (sorry, sound engineers!), and that’s exactly the point: searching for a sonic complexity and depth that’s constantly evolving, because it remains surprising. Moreover, our early years were spent mostly on stage, improvising without almost any predetermined elements, moving from abstract minimal moments to walls of noise. Our musical references were the bands we listened to while touring: things like Storm & Stress, Gastr del Sol, Rickets & Scurvy, a David Grubbs record featuring Kentucky Karaoke, but also lots of jazz — Miles Davis’s second quintet, Monk — anything by Monk! Our favorite tour pastime was putting together spontaneous playlists that linked songs together into soundtracks for nighttime highways.

This is a question I love asking projects made up of musicians with strong and well-defined musical personalities. What is the strictly musical quality you admire most in one another?

Luca: What I love in both of them is their ability to preserve a physical dimension of sound. Giovanni has the gift of harmonizing whatever comes from me or Stefano and making everything sound organic no matter how complex it may be. About Stefano, I admire the courage to search within the unknown fearlessly, while maintaining a spontaneity that makes everything he plays sound as if he were playing it for the first time.

Stefano: I love and admire the courage they both have — it makes them tireless explorers. They’re both incredibly reactive, whether improvisation is the main element or we’re moving through more composed territory. Luca is the musician who stimulates me the most: his rhythmic and timbral research on the piano is at the root of many of my own explorations on guitar. Giovanni is a musician who really challenged me to bring greater complexity into my playing.

Giovanni: Care for sound is probably the quality I admire most in Luca and Stefano. The level of detail with which every element is treated never stops surprising me — to the point that I often catch myself smiling quietly on stage during concerts because I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.

I think this is a particularly happy moment for the sounds explored on the record — between avant-jazz, stretched electronics, and a punk DNA. Do you agree? Who do you like in this area, who do you listen to or find inspiring, both in Italy and abroad?

We’ve always felt part of something larger, beyond scenes or whatever music happens to be hyped at a given moment. I think it has to do with feeling immersed in the present, in contemporaneity itself: this second record inhabits sounds that feel ours and at the same time not exclusively ours — just like the first one did, although it was completely different. I think there’s a fundamental curiosity alongside a clearly defined identity, and those two elements are absolutely not in conflict. We agree that more and more listeners, not just insiders, feel the need and pleasure of engaging with cross-genre music, which rather than representing a specific scene becomes a sort of experience for the listener. In that sense, bands like SML are very inspiring to us right now. Beyond the artistic and musical quality of what they do, they seem like a clear example of how this kind of music can genuinely reach people.

Can you tell me a bit about A Nice Noise, which is essentially She’s Analog with the inspired and stimulating addition of Adele Altro?

There’s actually very little to say: the collaboration with Adele emerged within the WeStart production center, during a residency in Modena that was initially supposed to result in just one concert — or at most a few concerts — as a final presentation. Instead, it gave birth to an entirely new band: a difficult and “anti-economic” experiment that developed a life of its own, reshuffling the original cards — both those of She’s Analog and those of Any Other, which is Adele’s main project.

All things considered, if we focus exclusively on the emotional atmospheres evoked in “no longer, not yet”, I almost feel more inclined to speak about electronic music than jazz or related genres. It’s as if you move in a second from the pastoral atmospheres of Boards of Canada to the urban blues of Burial. Do you recognize yourselves in that intuition? Were those musical and emotional landscapes something you were consciously pursuing?

As we mentioned, timbral research is one of the paths we naturally gravitate toward and one of the things we’re most passionate about. Each person’s sounds serve the overall sound of the group rather than maintaining an explicit connection to whoever is producing them. We also love a certain kind of rhythmicity which, while enriched by the complexity of gesture and the elusive quality of contemporary jazz, is fundamentally rooted in electronic beats and a rock attitude. All of this, combined with the search for a hybrid / undefined form that shaped “no longer, not yet”, definitely pushes us closer to electronic music than to jazz — which fundamentally derives from a direct and sensitive relationship between the musician’s individual vision, musical gesture, and sonic result. Let’s just say we enjoy making things a little more complicated than that.

You worked with an approach similar to the Davis/Macero duo — a sonic collage reconstructed from improvisations. Was this the first time? What made you choose this approach?

Yes, that was exactly the process, combined with the kind of pre-production techniques more commonly used in pop music. Over the course of several months we recorded all sorts of material, sometimes very roughly (even using a phone): free improvisations or improvisations guided by an idea, small melodic/harmonic/rhythmic sketches. Then one day we sat in front of a computer and, in a very playful spirit, started arranging, layering, and manipulating that material with the attitude of someone putting together a mixtape. Through that process, it was as if an intrinsic possibility hidden inside the material suddenly emerged. Something we hadn’t previously noticed: the possibility of narrating a story that was constantly evolving, where events surfaced without the preparation typical of canonical composition, often unfolding simultaneously on parallel planes. At that point we realized we had the pre-production for our next album in our hands. The next step was the courageous part — because by then we had grown attached to what we had already produced, despite the rough sound quality — which meant learning how to play what we had originally recorded through improvisation, and then spending three days gathering the necessary material at Luca Tacconi’s Sotto il Mare studio. After that came nearly a year of remote post-production between the three of us, followed by mixing with Alessandro Mazzieri.

The thing that has always struck me most about your project is the complete absence of musical ego. It always seems as though each of you, before being a musician, is first and foremost a listener — especially of the other members of the band. How do you arrive at this almost zen-like balance?

It was actually a fairly natural process, in the sense that all three of our sensibilities helped foster that balance. At the core of it there’s definitely a great deal of listening, along with the tendency to contribute only what we think is strictly necessary to bring this music to life. Stripping things down to the essentials and constantly questioning ourselves is certainly part of the search for that form of balance. What felt beautiful, interesting, and disorienting to us from the very beginning was the idea of creating a collective identity — a group image — within a field like jazz (even avant-jazz), where the “absence of ego,” as you call it, was often viewed with a kind of suspicion. Years later, we’re still here, and we’re happy to notice that even within jazz more and more groups are emerging in which the individual identities of the musicians dissolve into a collective one.

Can you tell me a bit about your relationship with the Italian experimental scene? What kind of moment do you think it’s going through?

We think the Italian scene is currently experiencing a very fertile moment in terms of the number of projects emerging and the general desire to make things happen. There’s definitely a shortage of spaces — especially, paradoxically, in big cities — spaces that aren’t just empty containers but places where the right things happen at the right moment. The tendency to “institutionalize” certain forms of music, something already very widespread in Europe, is increasingly making its way into Italy as well, and that comes at the expense of a healthy relationship with audiences. There’s this illusion of being able to survive entirely through public funding (which, of course, has its importance!), but unless that’s accompanied by the cultivation — let’s call it audience development, even if I don’t particularly like the term — of an actual audience, it becomes unsustainable, or worse, harmful to experimentation and research. That said, in recent years She’s Analog has been trying to move across different contexts: experimental music, more adventurous jazz programming, and so-called “indie” scenes.

And what about the rest of the world?

Our collaboration with Carton has definitely allowed us to establish a foothold in France, where over the last two years we’ve played several times and received a great response from audiences. 2026 is also the year we’ll explore Scandinavia for the first time, and in September we’ll tour across Europe, including Germany, Belgium, and probably the Netherlands. We’ve grown up — it’s time to step outside Italy!

Future plans?

There’s a beautiful new project currently in the works, with lots of new music.
We hope it will start seeing the light of day from 2027 onward — but we won’t say too much just yet…

What was in Argentina’s water during the twentieth century?

How did the South American nation manage to produce so much talent, all shaped by a strangely specific kind of genius: surreal and fantastical, yet deeply rooted in everyday life. Above all, in the urban landscape — in its dirtiest, most carnal, least romantic expressions.

That was the poetics of Julio Cortázar, but also of Diego Armando Maradona. Geniuses who turned perspective itself into an art form. It’s what separates a great writer from a mediocre one, a champion from an ordinary footballer: the ability to walk among everyone else and belong there completely, while never seeing the same things — or at least knowing how to tell them differently.

That was also the poetics of Luis Alberto Spinetta, the father of Argentine rock.

Born in 1950 just steps away from Estadio Monumental — home of River Plate and the Argentine national team, as well as the largest stadium in South America with its absurd 85,018 seats — Spinetta grew up surrounded by music. His father was an amateur tango musician, while his uncles worked for Columbia Records. He began listening and playing almost immediately; as a child he won local talent competitions and, like the rest of the world, was swept away by Beatlemania.

He was only seventeen when he founded Almendra, a foundational group in the history of Argentine music. Their debut album, “Almendra I”, it’s a psychedelic-rock masterpiece, complete with a legendary cover illustration drawn by Spinetta himself. Its importance for Argentina and much of South America can be compared to what “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” meant for the English-speaking world.

With Almendra, Argentina finally found its own national expression of rock music: songs sung in Spanish for the first time, loaded with poetry and meaning, fully integrated into the language and peculiarities of Latin American culture rather than functioning as pale imitations of Anglo-American models. In 1969, as political and social movements swept across the globe through hippie culture and the violent guitars of Jimi Hendrix, Spinetta emerged as South America’s own psychedelic messiah.

In true Argentine fashion, Spinetta was nicknamed “El Flaco” — “The Skinny One” — for his long, wiry frame. Even his face carried an unmistakably rock-and-roll physiognomy: hollow cheeks, sharp cheekbones, expressive eyes, a strong jaw, a prominent nose. Altogether he possessed that androgynous, almost adolescent beauty so common among the superstars of the era. Like many Argentines, he had European features and coloring, yet there was something disturbed in his appearance too — a genetic short circuit.

Luis Alberto certainly had Italian roots on his father’s side: his great-grandfather had emigrated to Argentina from Piedmont. Curiously, “spinetta” in Italian refers to an old plucked-string keyboard instrument belonging to the harpsichord family. Considering the ancient habit of surnames deriving from professions, it is not impossible to imagine that music had been embedded in the Spinetta family long before they ever arrived in Argentina.

After their second album, another major success, Almendra dissolved. Following one of rock music’s oldest archetypes, Spinetta entered a personal and mystical crisis: he broke up with his longtime girlfriend, spiraled into addiction, and began experimenting heavily with LSD. He released a transitional solo record with the extraordinary title “Spinettalandia y sus amigos”, before embarking on a seven-month journey across South America and Europe.

When he returned, he formed the most important and creative group of his long career (nearly forty albums spread across seven different projects): Pescado Rabioso. Literally “Rabid Fish”, the name perfectly captured both the repressed rage of the period, personal and social alike, and that unmistakably Argentine mixture of surrealism, grotesque humor, and morbid imagination. It sounds, once again, like one of the unsettling creatures roaming through Cortázar’s “Bestiario”.

The band’s first two albums — “Desatormentándonos” and “Pescado 2” — pushed further into instrumental psychedelia, with Spinetta’s guitar taking center stage. But it was the third record that became what may well be the masterpiece of his career. Singular, because although it was released under the band’s name, “Artaud” was written and performed almost entirely by Spinetta himself — at just twenty-three years old. All that was circulating through the musical world of the early seventies condenses inside this record: psychedelic rock and folk, blues, progressive music, art rock, and an astonishing attention to lyrics.

Everything about the album feels monumental, beginning with its incredible abstract cover — once again designed by Spinetta — and the famously irregular geometric shape of the vinyl sleeve, something his record label reportedly fought against. Against a green background stained with yellow, sits the image of the album’s spiritual patron: the French surrealist playwright Antonin Artaud.

The album opens with” “Todas las hojas son del viento” — “all the leaves belong to the wind” — a heartbreaking yet tender acoustic ballad addressed to his former partner and the decision to keep a child after contemplating abortion. From there, we slide into the slow-burning blues of “Cementerio Club”, where Spinetta’s guitar work becomes devastating, especially in the aching riff of the chorus that lodges itself in the listener’s head long after the song ends. The lyrics are equally moving, meditating on death and love through images like:

“Por” arrives next as a brief twelve-string interlude, as though Spinetta were shifting gears. The lyrics become a chain of disconnected images and references without context, while the melody slips from blues into baroque chromatic abysses reminiscent of progressive rock.

From there onward, the album grows increasingly abstract and daring. “Superchería” feels almost theatrical in a Frank Zappa sense, full of sudden accelerations and framed once again by Spinetta’s extraordinary guitar playing. The Artaudian obsession with the border between life and death continues through cryptic but programmatic lines such as: “It’s all the same, to die or to love.” The abstraction deepens further with “La sed verdadera”, another voice-and-guitar ballad haunted by eerie ambient sounds creeping through its ending like distant threats.

Artaud’s surrealist influence becomes impossible to ignore, and in the suite “Cantata de puentes amarillos” two more ghosts appear: Vincent van Gogh and the transgender Roman emperor Elagabalus, both central figures in Artaud’s writing. Nine minutes of interdimensional hallucination follow, filled with perfect melodies, vocal improvisations, and guitars intertwining like nests of electric snakes. Those snakes erupt in “Bajan”, a rock ballad recalling the finest moments of Neil Young. Then suddenly the song collapses into drunken piano chords, as though played by a saloon pianist in some decaying Western town.

That strange interruption introduces the album’s most radical moment: “A Starosta, el idiota”, a genuine auditory hallucination and direct homage to the most psychedelic side of The Beatles. After those opening piano chords, the music dissolves into dark ambient magma where fragments of cries, screams, disconnected noises, and threatening sounds drift in and out before the chorus of “She Loves You” by the Liverpool band emerges unexpectedly, bringing then the listener back to sweetness through acoustic guitar.

A violent rupture marked by the scream of an electric guitar carries us into the final track, “Las habladurías del mundo”, driven by Latin rhythms and irresistible riffs somewhere between Hendrix and Carlos Santana. Its closing line sounds almost like a manifesto for an entire generation facing the collapse of hippie utopias and the growing violence of modern society:

Spinetta had in fact written an actual manifesto: “Rock: música dura, la suicidada por la sociedad” (“Rock: hard music, murdered by society”). Audience members attending the album presentation at Teatro Astral in 1973, received the text before the performance began. It was a furious denunciation of conservative social forces and a celebration of instinct as the essence of life and the driving force behind rock music, rejecting both nihilism and self-destruction through sex and drugs. Spinetta was without a doubt a catalyst for several historical tensions colliding at once: Western optimism and European existential despair, the hippie idealism of sixties rock, and the abrasion and disillusionment that would define the seventies.

“Artaud” remains his masterpiece — a photograph somehow capable of capturing movement itself. Listening to it feels disorienting, as though the floor were slightly tilted or reality subtly warped through a pair of distorted glasses. The atmospheres initially seem familiar; we recognize the outlines of things. But the closer we move toward them, the more those forms reveal something entirely different underneath. It is once again the quality of Cortázar’s writing: that endemic surrealism infecting every story and novel. It is the vertigo that arrives when Maradona spots a pass visible only to him and suddenly tears open a new fragment of reality.

It is the ability of geniuses to fix their gaze upon the world and turn perspective into an art form — illuminating paths we could never have seen on our own. Especially when everything else around us is spinning at the speed of light.

Some time ago I wrote about how 2016 was the last year in which music and journalism still existed as two distinct identities — before the catch-all logic of “content” arrived to swallow everything and everyone.

That piece was originally much longer and more layered, because it included another intuition that, for reasons that will soon be obvious, couldn’t sit alongside the rest. The intuition is this: 2016 was a pivotal year for contemporary music, in a way that ran counter to what was happening in the political and social background. The oxymoron, the fracture created by these opposing forces colliding, explains as much about today’s socio-political landscape as it does about the musical one.

Let’s start with a fact. After years of post-indie purgatory and decline, by 2016 being white and playing guitar had definitively become uncool — and it stayed that way for quite some time. Ten years ago, the era of white, guitar-centric indie seemingly came to a close, giving way to a decade in which Blackness emerged as the new pop cultural center of gravity.

Just to be clear, 2016 gave us: “Blond” by Frank Ocean, “Lemonade” by Beyoncé, “Anti” by Rihanna, Kanye West (not yet Ye) with “The Life of Pablo”, “Coloring Book” by Chance the Rapper, “Views” by Drake, “A Seat at the Table” by Solange, “Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight” by Travis Scott, “Atrocity Exhibition” by Danny Brown, “Malibu” by Anderson .Paak, “99.9%” by Kaytranada, “Telefone” by Noname, “Yes Lawd!” by NxWorries, “Konnichiwa” by Skepta, “Black Focus” by Yussef Kamaal (which helped inaugurate the rich London nu-jazz season), “Made in the Manor” by Kano, “and untitled unmastered”. by Kendrick Lamar—with “To Pimp a Butterfly” having dropped just months earlier. At the same time, the new African pop wave identified as Afrobeats began spreading globally.

As I noted in the previous article, 2016 was also the last year in which the Western bloc still felt self-assured and at the political and cultural centre of the world — before COVID, before the wars, before today’s instability. “It was the year Donald Trump was elected to the White House; the year Russian interference in the U.S. electoral process was exposed; the year the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.”

A Western bloc in crisis along with its values and cultural framework meant that capitalism, the structure governing all our movements, felt the need to find fresh material to absorb and monetize, in that all-consuming blob mechanism so sharply described by Mark Fisher. Black and queer communities (first in the U.S., then globally, extending today to diaspora cultures in all their forms, including the current fixation on Latin American culture) were the most obvious choice.

For decades, Black American culture has been the engine behind the most important musical innovations in the world, alongside the almost inexplicable laboratory that is Jamaica. The codes that revolutionized contemporary music are all Black: from gospel to blues, from rock and roll to soul, from jazz to rap, to dance music and beyond. Yet they were almost always cast as background actors—celebrated as pioneers and experimenters, often posthumously, framed as outsiders, as tortured geniuses. In other words: unsellable as “brand ambassadors”, but perfect as suppliers of musical language to figures like Elvis Presley.

In 2016, that changed. Black American artists, backed by decades of struggle and innovation, found a voice in the mainstream—representing themselves and a new market segment now fully accepted as part of the capitalist machine, no longer just its expendable fuel.

Let’s not forget: the slavery that built the United States rested on the belief that Africans were expendable flesh—oil to be burned to keep the machine running faster. As Saidiya Hartman wrote about the slave trade, “death was simply part of the business.” All that death was incidental to profit-making and the rise of capitalism—not the goal, but a byproduct that rendered those lost lives insignificant.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick knelt during an NFL game to protest police brutality against African Americans. The Black entertainment world rallied around that symbolic gesture: we kneel to be heard. In 2020, George Floyd was killed. That peaceful kneeling transformed, echoing 1992 Los Angeles riots, into urban unrest, with one crucial difference: in 1992 there was no shared neural network of social media. This time, the movement went global. Streets everywhere filled with the same slogans and with the same music as the soundtrack.

In those four years, from 2016 to 2020, African American music and everything orbiting it, sports, comedy, film, TV, entertainment as a whole, became the new global mainstream. Suddenly 808 trap drums were playing in European supermarkets; legacy pop stars from the Old Continent began dressing like Black teenagers from Atlanta; music schools filled with DJing and electronic production courses while guitar classes struggled to survive.

At the same time, a new queer sensibility established itself in the mainstream. Nothing captures this dual movement better than a glance at Netflix’s screenplays and casting between 2016 and 2020. Another telling data point: according to a 2025 study by Pew Research Center, Islam is (to this day) the fastest-growing religion globally, outpacing all others—including Christianity. This has happened before: during the peak of Black anti-racist movements in the 1960s and ’70s, between the USA and the African continent.

Now imagine constructing a figure designed to terrify a far-right white racist. What would they look like, if not a Black person with ambiguous sexuality and an Islamic faith?

From 2016 onward, the mainstream narrative of Anglophone entertainment has promoted a new “renaissance” of inclusion, hybridity, borderless identity, freedom, and equality — packaged as corporate tokens. Meanwhile, the political and social world radicalized sharply to the right, leading to today’s surreal landscape.

How is that possible? It seems that the imposition and overexposure of Blackness (and queerness) as a commercial trend accelerated the radicalization of new rednecks and incels — fueling resentment, violence, and a global electorate eager to elevate populist, nationalist, racist, and sexist figures. Social media, with its polarizing effects and its flattening of complexity, played a central role here bringing us back to the logic of “content.”

Endless economic crisis, the disappearance of the middle class, climate anxiety pushed beyond breaking point. And on top of that, the entertainment system elevates as role models those who have historically been subjugated, exploited, and perceived as radically “other.” In far-right online subcultures, this has sedimented into hatred, insecurity, and a warped sense of injustice — the absurd narrative that the oppressed have become the oppressors, that “woke culture” has destroyed everything, and so on.

The machine protects itself by grinding everyone down indiscriminately, offering up the usual scapegoats. A toxic mix of panic, ignorance, and cruelty has shaped the monsters surrounding us today. It seems that the realization of God (aka the Western Bloc) being dead or at least starting to rotten, has made the white Anglo-European freak out and wanting to blow everything and everyone else up—instead of realizing we could be ALL actually much closer to be free.

This shift is reflected in music as well. In the last couple of years, guitars are coming back. Lanky white guys, post-indie sounds, and that whole constellation of “white” Americana are regaining ground. A look at the mainstream music landscape shows how closely the market tracks political trends.

After the Black cultural explosion of “Lemonade”, after the African celebration of “The Lion King: The Gift”, after the much more generic pop of “Renaissance”, Beyoncé reemerges in 2024 with “COWBOY CARTER”, braids gone, cowboy hat on, fully embracing country music. After awkward years as a faux-rapper, Miley Cyrus returns to platinum blonde, repositioning herself as an American sweetheart with a raspy voice for rock-pop ballads. After rising by appropriating South American Black-rooted culture, Rosalía releases “LUX” in 2025— draped in virginal white, abandoning twerk for a confused, overpromising record filled with European orchestration and Latin chants: a kind of fever dream for a white Europe that has never had so many far-right parties in power.

In a recent The Guardian article on the economic downturn of Afrobeats, Chibuzo Emmanuel makes it explicit: “Industry experts also worry that the rise of conservative politics and ethno-nationalism in the West has contributed to Afrobeats’ dwindling popularity… The resurgence of country music and other traditionally white genres gestures at the kinds of budgets being approved”.

Another controversy circulating these days seems to underline this trend, this time from the standpoint of outright manipulation. The focus is on the marketing tactics employed by Chaotic Good Projects, which in an interview with Billboard essentially admitted that it builds networks of social media pages — typically on TikTok—and then leverages them to push a band’s music into the recommendation algorithm. Songs are deployed as background audio for videos, clips from live shows are circulated, and in some cases entire ecosystems of secondary accounts, comments, and interactions are fabricated from scratch, all with the aim of feeding (and sometimes manufacturing) the conversation around an artist. These engineered interactions push tracks and discourse higher up the algorithmic charts of a platform.

Geese and Cameron Winter, MJ Lenderman, Sombr, Alex Warren, Dua Lipa, Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber, Mk.gee, Laufey, Wet Leg are among the most visible names to have tapped into Chaotic Good Projects’ services. Indie punk, washed-out pop, ersatz alternative — an entire aesthetic orbit that reconnects with a thoroughly white positioning of the music industry, this time advanced through invasive marketing campaigns. The dynamic isn’t all that far removed from U.S. electoral strategies, particularly those surrounding Donald Trump, where the meme has become the primary vehicle of political communication. It’s a form of music marketing that dovetails perfectly with the logic of amorphous “content,” producing a kind of shared, highly influenceable consciousness that only masquerades as individual taste.

The issue here isn’t complaining about the direction of an industry or about subjective musical preferences. The point is that Blackness-as-pop once carried with it a powerful gust of fresh air: an innovative, electrifying musical grammar inseparable from sharply defined political and social messages, often incendiary in their potential. Everyone benefited from it in one way or another — even those who have no idea what I’m talking about, even those who actively fought it. By contrast, the return of white, faux-alternative is, more often than not, musically sterile and politically conservative. It’s harmless and comforting teenage angst packaged in a pretty box.

If marketing, algorithms, capital, and politics are all pushing toward a sound aligned with the current political climate, then the first to push back should be artists and us — the listeners. The solution isn’t to keep fighting with the same weapons, but to change them. For years, the internet functioned as open territory: a space where taste could be discovered, shaped, and refined at a distance from mainstream media. Today, it morphed into the most powerful weapon of mass taste and thought con(dis)struction. Artists should take a step back and ask themselves how much of their music they’re willing to sacrifice to the god of content. And we, as listeners, should be asking the same question: how much of our taste are we willing to surrender to that very same god?

Since its inception, Shhh/Peaceful has grown into a project that now lives much more offline than online.

In this process, the curation of numerous live concerts across Italy has played a crucial role. None of this has yet found an organized space in the newsletter pages—I’m waiting to properly gather everything I’ve done. By the end of the winter/spring season, Shhh/Peaceful will have under its belt more than ten curatorial projects, featuring as many different musicians from all over the world, in various locations across the country. There will be time to talk about it soon.

Today, however, we arrive—unexpectedly but very naturally—at another small yet significant piece of the puzzle. Shhh/Peaceful becomes a cassette label. The first release (even though the catalog number says 002, after all we like jazz) is the debut album by the Palermo-based collective Lero Lero, co-produced with Panta Records and Black Sweat Records.

Lero Lero are the Palermo artists Alessio Bondì, Donato Di Trapani, and Fabio Rizzo—assisted in the album recordings by percussionist Giovanni Parrinello. At the core of their research lies the Sicilian Sound Archive of the 20th century. The melodies it contains—remnants of a magical world almost entirely lost—are revived by Lero Lero with a critical spirit and contemporary sensitivity. It is an act of reclaiming, reworking, and returning to the community a heritage suspended in time which, as René Char said, “is preceded by no will.”

Last year I spent some very intense days with Lero Lero in Tunis, documenting a residency promoted by Chullu Agency that I wrote about here. It was in Tunisia, during long afternoons spent drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, exchanging opinions, and above all listening to their rehearsals, that I became convinced of the magic of what they do. There could hardly have been a more fitting place. Palermo is Phoenician, not Greek and it looks at the Mediterranean as it was a mirror. The reflection that comes back is that of North Africa and the Middle-East, of which it was once part, without a sea dividing the lands.

In their record, traditional Sicilian songs are brought back to life without any nostalgic intent. Instead, it is about reclaiming a cultural heritage that has been forgotten and set aside. In recent years, we have been undeniably witnessing the gradual disintegration of the Western bloc—its hegemonic culture shaped by pro-American, Anglo-Saxon, white, colonial, Christian, and patriarchal values. Lero Lero’s music seems to embody this sentiment through nine tracks that take your breath away for their emotional intensity and intellectual depth. Palermitan guitar and electronics (in short: away with the diatonic scale, yes to the microtonal one), harrowing and beautiful voices, and lyrics that are both raw and tender like the caress of an old woman.

The album is now available on all streaming platforms. Black Sweat Records has pressed incredible vinyl editions, and Shhh/Peaceful has produced beautiful cassettes. The amazing photo is by Giulia Parlato, while the artwork is by Franz Longhi, and the stunning cassette design (which will become a proper series for future S/P releases) is by Francesco D’Agrippino. Vinyl and cassette can be pre-ordered at Shhh/Peaceful’s or Lero Lero’s bandcamp pages.

Why did I choose the cassette format? Because owning music in 2026 is essential. Continuing to accumulate endless libraries on streaming platforms feels almost like an insult to everyone, the listeners and the artists. We’ve all been through it during these years of binge consumption in the Spotify era. It’s time to say enough: fewer things, higher quality—both in listening and in production. The cassette is a format that evokes a DIY world that has always been mine; it has accessible production costs and allows for a low retail price, while still offering an object crafted with meticulous attention to detail.

This is why Shhh/Peaceful is born as a cassette label: to be as sustainable as possible for both me and the artists, to allow for obsessive care in the physical object (thanks again, Francesco), and above all to make it accessible to anyone who wants to own it.

Below you’ll find the track-by-track written by Lero Lero to dive even deeper into the mood of this stunning album. Shhh/Peaceful will continue to be a deep dive into creative music, a newsletter, a curatorial project and now a cassette label.

01. COM’AIU A FARI

“How can I go on now that I no longer have my mother? If I had my mother, I would not love you.” An enigmatic text, marked by the lamenting voice of a washerwoman, opens the album in its three-voice reinterpretation inspired by Sicilian Holy Week choirs. The theme of the loss of the Mother—and consolation through another love—seems here to symbolize the void left by tradition.

02. FRANCULINA

A carter’s song from the Bagheria area, here revisited through the voice following that melodic/melismatic teaching. Around it, Mediterranean riffs of a microtonal guitar and the furious groove of bass synth and Sicilian tambourine.

03. BEDDA CA CANTARI A MIA SINTISTI

The song inspiring this reinterpretation was originally collected in 1955 in Palma di Montechiaro, in the province of Agrigento, accompanied by the marranzano and performed in prison by Pietro Spampinato, who was then 71 years old. The couplets in this reworking draw from Spampinato’s verses and from other songs in the vast repertoire of “ottave siciliane.” A song of love and longing, of solitude and desire—of a humanity torn apart by the loss of freedom and the thought of a beloved who is distant and unreachable.

04. SALINAI

To help count baskets of salt, workers in the salt pans would shout surreal rhymes in which elements of the salt flats appeared in playful, almost nonsensical forms, often to favor rhyme. Here we find a reformulation of that counting, in a numerical and emotional crescendo leading to a final rupture, where the salt worker reveals the misery of his condition: “last night I worked for Campanella; he gave me bread one slice at a time; as a side dish, a hazelnut shell, to shrink my stomach.”

05. CUORI RI CANNA

In the agro-pastoral world, songs of disdain represented a social outlet following betrayal or rejection—a sort of serenade in reverse, guided not by love but by contempt. “Cuori ri canna, cuori ri cannitu”: once your heart belonged to a single reed, now it belongs to an entire reed bed—the singer seems to say to the woman who betrayed him. The irony of the lyrics meets the freshness of the arrangement, which through a wall of guitars and playful electronics emphasizes the sense of liberation after a relationship gone wrong.

06. MONREALESI

A Christmas novena, traditionally performed with keyed bagpipe and voice, is transposed here onto the Palermo guitar—an instrument shaped by Fabio Rizzo to emulate the oblique tuning of traditional instruments and voices. The magnetism created by the symbiosis of guitar and voice adds a scratch and depth that conveys the despair and “minor-key” lyricism of southern culture.

07. AIERI CI PASSAVA

A reworking inspired by a song of disdain recorded in the Agrigento area in 1955, in which a suitor, clearly unreciprocated, expresses all his angry sarcasm. The “alla viddanisca” melody here hooks onto an incessant bass-synth riff, with microtonal guitar and percussion completing the call-and-response.

08. OVA NICHI

The abbanniata is a vocal style used by vendors to advertise their goods and is still present today, though often performed differently from the past. This song is executed faithfully according to ancient codes and enriched by a dialogue with the original singer’s voice, sampled and used within the arrangement.

09. NINNA NANNA (U VIERSU)
From this dark lullaby collected in Ragusa in 1961, Lero Lero focus on its hypnotic potential, marked by obsessive bass-synth arpeggios and a drowsy, processional pace in which echoes of a Spanish past still deeply present in the island’s culture can be felt.

ABADIR is the alias of Rami Abadir, producer and sound designer born and raised in Cairo but based in Berlin for several years. He blends hi-fi electronic sounds and contemporary club music with non-Western rhythms and inspirations, creating an irresistible, haunting, and creative mix.

His music is deeply infused with social and political commentary, much like his public persona, never silent in the face of the distortions of the late capitalist and colonial world. If in “Mutate” the stated intention was to bring together Western and non-Western rhythms, in “Ison” it was to compose a sonic fiction inspired by the traditions and religious hymns of Christian practices. The albums are connected by an approach that revisits cultural surroundings in search of potential mutation.

We then arrive at “Kitbashing,” a project created in collaboration with Italian visual artist Nicolò Cervello. A sonic aestheticization of the harmful psychedelia of doomscrolling: this album moves from ambient to amen breaks, replicating the disintegration of our attention span.

I spoke with Rami on the phone about what we can call Mediterranean music, the challenges of becoming a professional musician, the colonial inferiority complex, and his latest project that he will present live in Italy, in Turin for SeeYouSound and Almare on March 7 for the Soundies section of the festival.

Do you think that when we speak about contemporary Mediterranean music we are really speaking about North African music?

I think it makes sense in terms of the sheer number of artists from North African countries that have been around for quite some time now. I’m referring to the scene I belong to, which is quite experimental and adventurous and yes, you can trace many of those artists back to Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, but if we are talking about Mediterranean music we have to keep in mind Lebanon for sure. They have a lot of artists that would fall under that umbrella of experimental and adventurous music; even others who aren’t really into contemporary electronic music could be included. Take for instance this label from Lebanon called Ruptured Records. That said, from a geographical standpoint it wouldn’t be fair to only include countries from North Africa or the so-called West Asia…

…It’s a lot of other countries of course like Italy, Greece, Spain…

Yes, exactly! I was about to say that. There’s Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, and I also know a lot of Turkish producers, but there is not much access to them. Italy and Greece’s musical background is very similar to the music you hear in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, which is all about making music in groups as a kind of ritual. As far as I know this exists in Naples, in Sicily: music isn’t individualistic but something collective. In this sense North and West Europe are so much behind in terms of music and dance, even fashion.

I was asking this because the feeling is that North African music has gotten a lot more popular in recent years. In a chat I had with the guys from Radio Alhara, they were careful to highlight all of the peculiarities and differences that exist within a very rich and complex multitude of countries that sometimes don’t exactly get along with each other. Sometimes you can’t even travel between some of those countries.

Yes, you were free to do it like a century ago but today there is a lot of friction between some countries because of these made-up borders, which is very sad. It’s something that is forced on us and completely out of our hands, we have to fight it but we can’t control it.

Do you think music has a way of breaking free of these borders, connecting different countries? What’s your personal perspective as someone who now lives in Berlin as opposed to artists that are currently living in one of those countries?

It all depends on the countries and their specific relationship, but a big problem in the Arab region is the lack of funding. At the moment it is a lot easier for me to travel and connect with artists from my region when they are also living in Europe, or if they come here. The lack of funding and the impossibility of traveling makes everything very difficult and confusing — it’s hard to do things in countries like Syria, Lebanon, et cetera. Speaking about funding, it really depends from region to region. For example, at this exact point, I don’t want to get funding from the German government, and this can be the case with other countries. It really depends.

Yes, that’s actually easy for me to understand coming from Italy, where the current government doesn’t exactly prioritize funding and investments for the experimental music and art world. I personally find that funding is very important when you are growing up and deciding for the first time that you want to become an artist. How was this kind of experience for you as a kid growing up in Cairo, Egypt?

My experience is kind of unique. I worked as an engineer for so many years and that was my main source of income, which helped me get started. I always knew that it was not possible for me to become a professional musician in Egypt and at some point I decided to move to Berlin. In my country, to survive making music you would have to make so many compromises and I think it has gotten worse, especially after COVID hit. Even during the revolution, when everything looked promising, I would not have made it as a musician, or relied on music or any kind of art as a source of income. So I did music on the side for a long time, then in 2016 I went semi-pro and in 2018 I quit engineering completely. I had some savings and I was really fed up with that job. To this day if I speak with friends in Cairo, they are not able to make a living from the arts.

What made you pursue music back when you were a teenager? Was it the environment and the people around you or was it (like many people from your generation) because of stuff you saw on MTV?

I think it was a mixture of both. The whole MTV thing surely played a role since I grew up in the late Eighties and I was lucky enough to have cable — not everybody had it. Also reading British magazines, but mostly watching stuff on MTV, obscure programs like “Chill Out Zone.” One thing I appreciated during the Nineties was grunge and Britpop. So all these things were important influences for me. In terms of the real environment, not the media one, I grew up going to French school. I used to visit the school theatre where I would plug in my guitar and play “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Back then it was a real luxury. During my time at university I carried on playing in bands with my friends, mainly playing grunge music. After that, during the course of the last decade, I decided to go solo. It’s the same as people doing the more street music of Egypt like mahraganat, more traditional or modern traditional music. They were surrounded by the best environment to do that, it’s more physical and not that much media-related. In my case it was a mix of both.

I think it’s interesting how both Western and non-Western influences seemed to have played a role.

Yes! You bring up a crucial aspect because for me the point is how you tweak that Western influence to make it fit in your own local environment.

That was what I was trying to say. In Italy’s case after WW2 the country was devastated and we had to take money from the USA, which, to simplify, led to our country starting to adopt the Anglo-American model of society . We started to take in all the US/UK music almost as our own without ever questioning how it would have merged with our pre-existing musical tradition. What was the situation like in Egypt, was there more resistance or even just critical thinking about these things?

Before I tell you this I need to explain the organic way we took and tweaked things coming from the West and how we used them in our own way. Mahraganat is the perfect example, also raï music from Algeria in the early 2000s. In raï they took, for example, autotune and they pushed it to its limits, years before T-Pain did it. This is something that has happened more than once: looking at a piece of technology from the West and using it in a very creative way. Mahraganat has done it with the 808 drums. This is how it should be done, I think. You can’t live in isolation, resisting everything. It’s also nice to claim these things, subvert them and use them in our way, it’s really important. But about resistance: no, that’s not the case. And it’s getting worse and worse. I think there’s always been an inferiority complex, especially in big cities. Some people don’t want to perceive themselves as Arabs, even though we have common traditions, languages, dances, foods, music, interests and we could stand together against common enemies and threats. It should be a common interest to find a way to construct an alternative to capitalism and it can be done across Arab countries. There’s always this kind of resistance: when we look at ourselves we always see something beneath the rest. As a consequence and a reaction we get Americanized, culturally colonized. I was subject to that, of course. During the Nineties I was listening to a lot of Egyptian music, for us it was a golden era of pop music. Then at the beginning of the 2000s it was clear that music and my whole environment (movies, but also the way you were conducting yourselves) became more Americanized. Personally, things started to change, by time I started questioning everything, capitalism of course, because I worked in a corporate environment. When I moved to Berlin I found a situation that was not the one that I thought off. All of these thoughts accumulated and exploded on the 7th of October 2023 during the genocide in Gaza: everything was uncovered. I realized how much I despise Western capitalism and liberal politics, all the fake lies about democracy and freedom of speech. I started to appreciate more and more stuff that was deeply rooted in Egyptian and Arab culture. But the younger generation brings another contradiction. It’s like a collective mind, not speaking about the working class, but the low to high middle class. They look up to the English-speaking world, they even tend to speak in English, and the Arabic language is so rich, it’s a shame. If you go on TikTok they tend to speak with a Californian accent.

I think we as Italians are the final product of that. We already lost half of our vocabulary, substituted with English lingo. In music, for example, some of the major pop artists sing in an Italian that has an English sound, an English accent somehow. It’s making the music more radio-friendly, looking like that.

Incredible! But even on stupid social media content, I don’t know, let’s say a food blogger doing a random review of a restaurant review of a restaurant. They will say stuff like “the vibes of this restaurant is from another world, you will never imagine you’re in Egypt. It’s like if you find yourself in Europe or Dubai”. This is too obvious now. During the Nineties we didn’t have access to social media or the internet like that. I think right now it’s getting ridiculous, connecting again to the inferiority complex, how people look down on themselves and look up to the West. It’s very sad.

A lot of experimental and creative music coming from the Mediterranean and the North African regions seems to be very dark, very heavy. Not in a bad way, it’s just my perception of these sounds. Hearing you speak, especially about coming to a lot of epiphanies about the Western system and revaluing your roots, do you think that this collision sounds like that?

I think you are right. I have at least six or seven albums in mind right now that you can consider dark, melancholic. But even if they are dark, the theme, the concept behind these works more often than not isn’t. This is something that I appreciate a lot. And even if it is dark, it makes sense. It’s coming from an honest place. Liliane Chlela comes to mind, 1127, Muqata’a, Zuli. There are so many layers behind their music, but I always see a lot of good arguments behind this darkness. I always ask myself and other people: why are you making this music? We must question ourselves. I can find so many answers on why music is going in a dark direction. I would really hate it if it was something false, an aestheticization of darkness. It’s not a trend. Let’s see it the other way around: imagine artists from our region making hyperpop music. It would be ridiculous, it wouldn’t make sense. Six years ago I interviewed Slikback and I questioned him about a track called “Rage” that seemed to come from a different place compared to his other music, very noisy. He simply told me that it’s the music he makes when he is angry.

Among other things your work is also in the realm of club music. Do you feel that clubs and club culture make sense anymore?

No, not at all. It’s the most exhausting, repetitive thing you can see. It’s boring, absolutely outdated, the format is stale. I would really appreciate going to listen to club music on a Sunday morning, for example. Finding other ways to consume music. To play in different setups and venues. I’m so desperate about clubs and the idea of playing in them: no space, the hideous small talk, the stink. I’m over it. I still enjoy producing club music though, the idea of music driven by rhythm. Also, I’ll keep playing in clubs as long as this format exists, because that’s a part of my job and I need to accept it.

What about “Kitbashing”, your latest project, what can you tell me about it?

“Kitbashing” started back in early 2023, it took around two years to have the full project done. Nico and I knew each other from the master’s program in Digital Media in Bremen. During the program and some of its courses we used to exchange ideas and engage in some discussions related to music, media theories, culture, etc. “Kitbashing” was a good opportunity to collaborate on something instead of just theorizing. There was an open call for a platform called 25AV. After finishing the project, we decided to upgrade it to a full performance and extend it to an album, a 45–50-minute A/V show. As I spent a lot of time on social media and while I’ve been tending to spend less time on it, I’ve been marking some of the reels so I can sample their sounds. “Kitbashing” was the perfect opportunity to work on that. Theoretically I was inspired by some books like “The Twittering Machine” by Richard Seymour and “Almighty Machine” by Pekka Vahvanen. Both are good media and tech critiques which helped to boost the concept of the project. I cut up all the samples, and the music was made to fit people’s interaction with the algorithm on social media. The non-conventional rhythms, the exponential rhythms and some of the intense parts in the project are like a sonic simulation of scrolling. The main idea is to challenge submission to the algorithm.

What about its live rendition?

You can expect a nice A/V show, weird yet familiar, serious yet fun, a timeline of sounds and visuals, a scrolling action simulated with non-conventional rhythms. A performance that hopefully will open your appetite for a good meal after.

I always ask this to conclude interviews: what are you listening to right now and what’s really inspiring you?

Generally speaking, recently I’ve been obsessed with a lot of stuff from the Nineties: Tricky, Portishead, Massive Attack, The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers. It’s the music I was listening to growing up and I’m revisiting it and appreciating it more and more. Some classic jungle and drum and bass, the latest albums by Pulp and Stereolab. To this add a lot of traditional music from the Arab region, a lot of wedding music, also Warda and Sabah Fakhri.

You may not remember it, but in 2016 we were already fairly desperate. At the time it was often described as “the worst year ever” — a definition that now sounds almost naïve, considering what was still to come. It was the year Donald Trump was elected to the White House; the year Russian interference in the U.S. electoral process was exposed; the year the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.

More broadly, it was the year in which the global chessboard, at least the Western one, began to creak audibly. The return of extremisms, the closing of borders, the sense of a permanent conflict shifting from latent to structural. If we remember 2016 with nostalgia today, it is perhaps precisely for this reason: it was the last year before a long slide began, an unstoppable avalanche that swept us away and has yet to show any sign of stopping.

But this slide did not concern politics, society, or the economy alone. In 2016, Instagram began the series of transformations that would turn it into the steamrolling machine we know today. TikTok was also launched that same year. For all intents and purposes, this marks the beginning of the era of infinite scrolling. Laptops began to lose their centrality, while everything collapsed into the palm of our hands: image consumption, shopping, reading articles, listening to music, even human interaction itself.

As Dr. Ethan Hein notes at Dazed, reflecting precisely on this nostalgic feeling:

«Music communicates nonverbal feelings very well and, to me, [the 2016 trend] seems less about music and more about a time when the internet actually worked. It was before AI slop, before people were getting radicalised into the manosphere through YouTube recommendations, before Trump. 2016 does feel like a bit of a political and social turning point.»

So it’s true, 2016 was therefore a turning point. But here I want to focus on a specific aspect. Ten years ago everything we knew — music, journalism, criticism, public discourse — began collapsing into a single, shapeless, invasive, and in many ways toxic blob: content. Before music was music, journalism was journalism, bloggers’ opinions were articles and communities, and comments on social media were, for better or worse, simply comments.

If 2016 now appears to us as “the last good year,” it isn’t only because of the socio-political landscape, but because culture (especially pop music and the ecosystem surrounding it) still had a soul. In fact, multiple souls: distinct, intricate, complex. This is why it’s fair to say that ten years ago cultural criticism definitively cracked. The invisible threads of taste that once supported cultural production snapped, leaving chaos behind.

From 2016 onward, the discourse around any cultural product has passed almost exclusively through virality and polarization. If a record or a song goes viral, then it deserves to be talked about; it has the numbers required to justify investment, media attention, critical legitimacy. Depth becomes secondary, if not entirely incidental.

Today the mechanism is still the same, even if we can sense some timid creaking — critiques of streaming platforms, social media, and their extractive models. It’s a mundane observation, but it remains true: virality comes first, and only then, perhaps, quality. A reversal of values that has contributed to a generalized lowering of musical standards, especially because younger generations of artists internalize this logic from the outset. Music is conceived, from the start, as content.

You are no longer a musician or a journalist: you are a content creator, an influencer. In 2026 we no longer read or hear complex, articulated opinions; instead, we watch two-minute videos that compress different ideas into effective slogans. This creates an enormous cognitive problem: we lose our familiarity with nuance and complexity — two concepts that have disappeared from the way we talk about music. Likewise, we no longer listen to albums, often not even to full songs, but consume sixty-second reels, tight edits, catchy fragments that exist for their own sake.

It hardly seems coincidental that 2016 was also the year trap music established itself globally: a genre born to serve as the soundtrack to emptiness, to the absence of meaning. As I’ve written elsewhere (in italian), “the vocal psychedelia created by Auto-Tune does not open inner worlds or imagine alternatives to the squalor surrounding us. It is an epidermal psychedelia: it flows across the skin, but never penetrates. We keep skating across the screen, staring at the reflection of our own red, expressionless eyes.”

In an article for The Verge tracing the history of the shuffle button (in a sense, the forerunner of scrolling from a musical point of view) Natalie Weiner observed that:

«Increasingly precise and invasive algorithms have crept in under the comparatively innocuous umbrella of ‘randomness,’ feeding us not just songs without context but information of every possible variety that is both novel and tells us what we’d like to hear — usually in service of getting us to buy something.»

From 2016 onward, we have increasingly become objects of passive consumption — something that, by definition, excludes criticism and accepts polarization as its only viable form of visibility. Weiner concludes:

«Our social media timelines and YouTube feeds and video streaming services all employ the conceit, if not the science, of shuffle and randomness to keep us looking and listening, consuming without going through the work of figuring out what to consume.»

It is within this framework that artists and journalists become vendors. And one of the most powerful weapons in this system is nostalgia. Simon Reynolds puts it succinctly: «eliminating the need for choice, yet guaranteeing familiarity, it relieves you of the burden of desire itself.» We are anesthetized. We remain still while scrolling, while our desires are served to us without ever allowing us to understand what they are, or to articulate them ourselves.

Nostalgia for 2016 speaks to this as well. In 2026 we are suffocating under terminal capitalism, and we turn our gaze back to the last moment when it still seemed to function. But as Reynolds reminds us, this search for comfort is a privilege: a trait typical of the white middle class, expressed through retromania. Other demographics, with far less to romanticize about the past, tend instead to imagine the future — afrofuturism being the most emblematic example.

Retromania provides comfort by allowing us to continue participating in the consumer machine, but at a safe distance — that familiar post-ironic, hipster detachment. In a striking interview, Reynolds cites artist Margaret Kilgallen, whose work incorporated commercial imagery, old advertisements, signage from another era. She explained that «this stuff becomes interesting to me when it’s no longer selling anything to me».

It’s an illuminating sentence, one that perfectly captures today’s mode of cultural consumption. When an album comes out and we spend months talking about it (more than often in polarized terms) my first instinct is rejection, the desire to escape. I’ve avoided listening to truly beautiful albums for months simply because I felt violated by a machine that demanded my participation in a perverse game of exposure. This applies not only to mainstream pop, but increasingly to phenomena that would once have been considered underground. I almost never write about newly released albums for this reason as well: they become interesting only once they’ve stopped trying to sell me something, once they exit this perverse game, once I no longer feel the pressure to help sell something myself.

The past ten years have chewed up music and culture. Alternatives exist and always have, but they are becoming increasingly narrow, increasingly accessible only to those who can afford them — culturally and economically. It is a fact that the population is growing poorer, not only economically but also, and especially, intellectually. The two go hand in hand. We need to reclaim the right to complexity, dismantle the diktat of polarization, step outside the algorithms, and reclaim our right to choice, to criticism, to deep listening. Culture is devouring itself, and even retromania will no longer be able to provide that false sense of safety. If we are already nostalgic for a time just ten years ago, it means there is nowhere left to escape. The time has come to make a serious collective effort and truly try to imagine the future Or, at the very least, make the present bearable.

“The voice trembles. Motionless, eyes lowered, stunned, disoriented. An obsessive spectator. A concrete labyrinth, blurred worlds, glass towers as tall as churches. Blinding light, eyes closed. The scene collapses.”

Davide Ambrogio does not want to set the scene—he wants to destroy it. The opening of his latest album, “Mater Nullius”, seems to urge the listener to leave behind what they already know: toxic modernity, speed, the culture of performativity. To leave all this outside and embrace a forty-five-minute ritual, timeless music that speaks as much to the past as to a future different from the one we are currently destroying.

The Calabrian multi-instrumentalist teams up with Walter Laureti for a record that feels at ease across many different realms: from the outdated label of world music to contemporary electronic experimentation, through the global renaissance of new folk music. Simply put, this a beautiful album which, by virtue of its strong territorial and linguistic specificity, ultimately ends up speaking to the entire world. I chatted directly with Davide about it.

Where, how, and when did your artistic journey begin?

It started almost without me noticing. As a child, music never felt like a possible future; it was simply part of everyday life in the place where I lived for twenty three years. It took me until I was about fifteen to really become aware of it. My relationship with sound was born there, in Cataforìo, in Aspromonte, Calabria. I learned to listen before I learned to play or sing, and that deep, attentive listening became the foundation of everything. Later came formal studies, university, Rome, bands, and encounters with people who showed me music from entirely different perspectives. But the core remained the same: a natural, daily relationship with sound. My path didn’t come from a strategic or intellectual decision, but from the need to give shape to an experience, an inner form of expression.

And when did traditional Italian music become central to your work?

It happened gradually, intensifying at the moment of my separation from Cataforìo and the beginning of my life in Rome. It was deeply tied to a need for roots, to the search for a sense of home in a place that didn’t feel like home. At some point, I realized that the voices I had always lived alongside weren’t just memories, but tools for understanding myself and where I come from. I wasn’t interested in repetition, but in understanding how that language worked. Today, studying oral tradition isn’t just about remembrance; it’s also about critique and about building relationships that can open up new ways of making music together, beyond the idea of performance.

What is your relationship with singing?

It’s hard to define, and it changes year after year. What never disappears is the sense of wonder—both in singing and in listening to voices. Singing is one of the most powerful, magical tools we have to tell stories, to narrate ourselves, to express what words alone can’t. And singing together creates something that truly defies description.

Which instruments do you play, and how have you developed your approach to them?

I mainly play guitars and the zampogna. Other instruments—like the Cretan lyra, percussion, and flutes—are more like companions that are always close by. My learning process has always centered on listening and on musical codes rather than on pure technique. I do see myself as a kind of multi-instrumentalist, but I’m far from being a virtuoso. My technical level on most of these instruments is quite modest. What matters to me is the depth of the relationship I have with them. I choose instruments for the gesture and the energy they carry, for their character rather than technical perfection.

How did the album take shape?

The album came together slowly, without urgency. After the previous one, “Evocazioni e Invocazioni”, I needed time for things to settle. That project lived a lot through live performances and brought me into many different contexts and relationships. Eventually, ideas and notes started to surface, but without forcing them. The real turning point happened in Sicily. The Bosco di Alia and, above all, the Gurfa Caves radically changed my perception of sonic space. Stepping inside those caves and hearing how sound interacted with the walls—the resonance, the physical response of the stone—was a point of no return. From then on, I knew I wanted to make an album that sounded like those places, not a conventional studio record.

Who is Mater Nullius, the “mother of no one”?

I usually answer this by pointing to a line printed inside the album, which sums it up clearly: “Mater Nullius is the mother of no one. She is desacralized land that has ceased to be a mother, profaned and turned into an object by her own children.”

What does ritual mean to you?

Ritual doesn’t mean recreating a rite exactly as it was. It means making a myth present again, here and now. It’s about cyclically repeating an archetype that reconnects us to that myth. For me, it’s the most direct way of stepping out of the profane and into the sacred.

Traditional music has recently been recontextualized within pop culture—think of Rosalía and flamenco, or Bad Bunny and Puerto Rico. What’s your take on this shift?

Pop music can definitely act as the new folk revival, with all the contradictions and complexities inherent in the idea of folklore. In places like France, there’s a strong debate around colonialism, exoticization, and cultural appropriation, and this is where I see the real issue. Many listeners don’t recognize the sounds that come from oral traditions and rural or pastoral cultures. As a result, music presented as “ancestral,” “Italian,” or “Southern” is often assumed to belong to our own heritage.
In reality, those sounds might come from Galician music, flamenco, cumbia, or gnawa traditions. The problem isn’t the sound itself, but the narrative built around it. At some point, we’ll also need to seriously address authorship and credit. If oral traditions and sound archives so deeply inform original compositions, then acknowledging those sources—through copyright systems, liner notes, or even Spotify credits—should be standard practice. Too often, this step is overlooked.

What’s the biggest misconception about traditional Italian music?

That many of its sonic and cultural worlds are simply unknown. Folklore still dominates the narrative. A quick search for “traditional Italian music” on YouTube and a look at the first ten results says a lot.

How did your collaboration with Walter Laureti begin?

From the very beginning, our relationship was built on friendship, respect, and genuine exchange. We never work with the idea of what might “work” commercially, but rather on what the music itself needs. In the studio and on location, we allow ourselves time—to make mistakes, to try again, to listen to silence. Walter has a rare ability to let sound speak. He never imposes himself; he listens and accompanies. That’s essential for me. He’s the only person who can enter my sonic world and push it further, into places I could never reach alone.

Can you tell me some more about the process of recordings in such unique places?

Choosing the locations was crucial. The Bosco di Alia and the Gurfa Caves weren’t neutral backdrops—they dictated how we listened, how we existed in the space, and ultimately how we made music. At Gurfa, sound immediately collided with matter, with the resonance of stone, fundamentally changing my relationship with both the instruments and electronics. In the Bosco di Alia, we found isolation and silence, which encouraged slower, deeper work. In both cases, the environment wasn’t decorative; it actively shaped the music. For me, Gurfa is a true co-author of the album.

How did you approach the recording process overall?

With simplicity and flexibility. We recorded a lot live and outdoors. The aim wasn’t a clean, polished record, but something that breathed—raw, imperfect, alive.
One of the most challenging choices, as with “Evocazioni e Invocazioni”, was overdubbing without a click track. It extends production time significantly, but it allows the music to move in less rigid, less predictable directions, both rhythmically and harmonically.

What were you listening to while making the album—and what about now?

In recent years, I’ve reflected deeply on how I listen to music today. I don’t consume much music online, and I’m unfamiliar with most recent releases. My focus has been almost entirely on oral traditions, sound archives, and ethnomusicological research.
During the making of the album, for instance, I listened almost exclusively to Arbëreshë songs, Sicilian Holy Week chants, and Australian Aboriginal music.

No doubt about it: this year was a shit show. But, it all honesty, it had a great soundtrack. So, in the mist of it all, let’s focus on something good. These are my twenty records of the year, ranging from deep ambient and field recordings to future jazz, and crazy rhythms.

Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta - Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes)

By now, the Nyege Nyege Tapes record label is no longer a novelty, yet it would be a shame not to keep being amazed by the absurd music it continues to deliver. This album was released at the beginning of 2025, as if to set the surreal tone for the year ahead. Recorded in Kampala, Mapambazuko pairs Peruvian artist and researcher Alejandra Cárdenas (aka Ale Hop) with Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta: soukouss meets Afro-Latin rhythms and fractured, wild synths.

Jeremia Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Different Rooms (International Anthem)

The duo return after the beautiful “Recordings from the Åland Islands” with an album as delicate as a gentle touch. A finely balanced blend of jazz improvisation, contemporary classical hints, deep modular textures, and ethereal string work. It’s a waking dream of a record, elevated by a distinctive approach to editing and composition that gradually reveals its depth with each listen.

Magugu & Le Motel - Bitter Better (Maloca)

This is a match made in heaven. Magugu’s voice comes directly from the abyss: a slow, terrifying and enchanting guttural wail that shakes the body of the listener from head to toe. Add Le Motel’s technical and freezing cold production and you get a mix that is close to the one of magma and ice. And you know what happens when you mix those two? Magic. Explosive magic. We might have found the new sound of grime.

Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures (Hermine)

The latest album from the Japanese artist was inspired by creatures she encountered while diving near a remote island. In a way, her entire discography is inspired by aquatic worlds. Her music flows in and out of the listener with the same delicacy as water. The previous album ended with a two-minute recording of waves crashing on the shore—this new one takes us below the surface. Pure magic and healing for the ears.

Los Thutanaka - Los Thutanaka (Self Released)

This is music that tickles the brain, stimulates it, and cradles it all at once. Guitars as original as we haven’t heard in a long time, crazy samples, soaring percussion. Siblings Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton blend Latin rhythms from their Bolivian heritage with analog electronics, following no rules except their bubbling creativity. Some time ago I had foreseen this one as one of the most selected albums for end of the years lists and just by looking around I think I was more than right.

McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive! (City Slang)

I’ve always had a soft spot for jazz-hop, and right now, few artists do it better than the Virginia native. His latest album is a masterclass in balance—complex yet instantly approachable, intricate yet immediate. While it might be a bit more challenging to follow than his previous work (“Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?”), it never loses its flow. He is clearly evolving, stretching the boundaries of the genre, and taking listeners along for the ride. Thank you, McKinley!

Yazz Ahmed - A Paradise In The Hold (Night Time Stories)

The latest record from the British-Bahraini trumpeter is her best to date. Her masterful trumpet playing and compositional talent are perfectly balanced in an album that draws the listener into an irresistible trance. A fusion of nu-jazz, Arabic and electronic sounds, with creativity running at full power. Simply stunning.

Yunis - Ninety Nine Eyes (Drowned By Locals)

Repetition is a fundamental element that is increasingly rare in today’s fast-consumption music culture. In “Ninety Nine Eyes”, YUNIS uses it as a tool for slow, hypnotic construction: two suites lasting over fifteen minutes each, developed with an artisan’s patience. The pieces blend experimental ambient, Arabic musical modes, and Egyptian folk instruments, echoing Islamic ritual practices such as dhikr, where repetition becomes spiritual surrender. YUNIS, an Egyptian composer and performer active between Egypt and France, and the album is released by the great Amman-based label Drowned By Locals.

ONDAKEIKI - Canti Vol. 2 (42 Records)

Dub and psychedelia, off-kilter indie, and gritty reggae. The Milan-based trio’s second album is a short but playful ride, matching the charm of their debut while finding even more power in songs that barely resemble traditional song structures. Born almost by accident, this project is steadily staking its claim in the Italian indie landscape, and it’s hard not to be drawn in by its unpredictable energy.

Ori Barrel - Bronze, Beige, Morse (Unseen Sounds)

Surf, punk, electronica, and progressive music—but even these labels barely scratch the surface of a record that is both astonishingly complex and effortlessly listenable. There’s an undercurrent of randomness running through the album, yet we’re never truly lost; a guiding thread carries us seamlessly from one moment to the next, from one track to another, making the journey as captivating as it is unpredictable.

Maiya Blaney - A Room With A Door That Closes (Lex Records)

Maiya Blaney creates extremely dense and fast-paced tracks, where post-grunge guitars, drum and bass, sensual soul, and emo coexist in an only apparent chaos. Her music defies indie or alternative labels, as it pushes to the extreme a contemporary trend: the fusion of African-American genres with British-rooted indie rock. It’s like a hyperactive collage mixing distant influences — from Burial and Erykah Badu to Kurt Cobain and Moor Mother — into an overwhelming, emotional, and breathless record.

Pets - 🌀❓[Spiral Question Mark] (Self Released)

Neil Young, Carole King, and Arthur Russell are clear inspirations, yet the album has a completely contemporary sensibility. I devoured this record, and the highest compliment I can give it is this: we are witnessing top-tier songwriting. The New York band needs just a few elements to craft perfect songs—catchy anthems, psychedelic pop, and melancholic hits. It can lull you gently to sleep just as easily as it can make you move your body, with no other purpose than to feel alive.

Resavoir & Matt Gold - Horizon (International Anthem)

No other album this year captured the essence of summer with such effortless grace. That slow, lingering sense of time, the first sip of chilled white wine soothing your throat and loosening your muscles as you watch the waves roll by. Cinematic jazz weaves seamlessly with subtle Brazilian touches and grooves as smooth as velvet. Breathtaking.

Joe Armon-Jones - All The Quiet, Part I and II (Aquarii Records)

With Ezra Collective now firmly established as global superstars, Jones has more time to devote to his first passion: dub. The virtuoso keyboardist—one of the most gifted musicians of our generation—has released an astonishing amount of music under his own name this year. These two albums are simply perfect in striking the right balance between his most adventurous jazz soul and the depth and laid-back vibe of sound system culture.

Jonah Parzen-Johnson & Lau Nau - A Few We Remember (We Jazz Records)

Parzen-Johnson’s saxophone has increasingly become a guarantee. The American saxophonist undoubtedly has a voice of his own, which in 2025 already feels like a small miracle. Paired with the delicate and immersive soundscapes of the Finnish composer, the result can only be extraordinary. We are enveloped in atmospheres that move between improvisation, jazz, and electronics, as moving and soothing as the northern lights.

Kore - Raï’N’B Fever: Part 1 (PKMG)

The latest installment in the fortunate series of albums mixing North African Raï music with French R&B and hip-hop. Thirty minutes of contemporary anthems with a classic touch. Dance music across borders for the past, the present and the future.

SML - How You Been (International Anthem)

Their debut album, “Small Medium Large” was recorded at the now closed ETA, during two nights of free form improvisations, later edited with the approach of the Macero/Davis duo and the pivotal German band Can. The result was an hypnotic post-jazz, infused with dub, krautrock, psychedelia and no limits for interplay and creativity. Their second, highly anticipated album sticks to that formula while losiung some of the darkness and dub-like structures in favor of an electronic fluidity that opens up new horizons—freer, more creative, and brighter in terms of general mood.

Nick León - A Tropical Entropy (TraTraTrax)

If these lists also aim to highlight albums that captured the spirit of the year they were released, “A Tropical Entropy” definitely ranks near the top. The Miami-based producer and DJ has crafted an album that feels like the soundtrack to the end of the world—welcomed with the wry, ecstatic smile of someone watching the horizon explode to the rhythms of dembow and psychedelic reggaeton.

Les Biologistes Marins - Looking Out For Dolphins (Jipo Records/Kohlaas Records)

Thalassophilia (and not thalassophobia) is the force that drives the duo composed of Beatrice Miniaci and Anton Sconosciuto. For them, water is the origin of everything—of a music shaped by the practice of deep listening, field recordings, ambient, and avant-jazz. Their latest album is a treasure of beauty that cradles the listener: it sketches light, fluid narratives, enveloping and guiding while leaving all the space needed to move freely and construct one’s own listening path.

Big Hands - Thauma (Baroque Sunburst)

An unclassifiable record born from dreams during the stormy crossings of the Mediterranean Sea. It echoes the sea’s magical and tempestuous rhythm, enveloping the listener in an enchanting musical flow. Amazing field recordings are at the centre, but the quality of the composition surrounding and enhancing them is equally stunning.

SML is the quintet featuring bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. They are what one would call a supergroup: five of the most active and exiting musicians in the realm of creative music (each one with their solo projects and careers) coming together in Los Angeles.

Their debut album, “Small Medium Large”, came out in June 2024 via International Anthem. It was recorded at the now closed ETA, during two nights of free form improvisations, later edited with the approach of the Macero/Davis duo and the pivotal German band Can. The result was an hypnotic post-jazz, infused with dub, krautrock, psychedelia and no limits for interplay and creativity. Their second, highly anticipated album is “How You Been” released a few weeks ago, again on International Anthem. While the formula remains very similar to their debut, on “How You Been” the band loses some of the darkness and dub-like structures in favor of an electronic fluidity that opens up new horizons—freer, more creative, and brighter in terms of general mood.

I spoke with Gregory Uhlmann, Jeremia Chiu, Josh Johnson and Booker Stardrum between their shows at Rewire festival, in the lobby of the band’s hotel in The Hague, on April 5th 2025. Despite being held hostage by some of the worst hotel lobby music in the history of the universe, we still managed to have a great conversation about Los Angeles and Chicago, the band’s editing process, International Anthem and limitations as a source of creativity.

How did SML came to be?

Gregory Uhlmann: Essentially it all started at this spot, ETA, in Los Angeles. Jeremiah and I had been talking about playing together, also with Josh, Booker and Ana. It happened over two nights: the first one with Josh, Jeremiah and I; the second one with Booker, Ana, Jeremiah and I. We just taught of combining the two formations, so we did another two night run. It just felt really great and…the rest is history [laughs]. That was kind of were the first record came from. It was all recorded by this guy, Bryce Gonzales, who would do a lot of live recordings at ETA.

I can imagine you guys knew each other and played together before forming SML.

Jeremia Chiu: Booker and I had spent a lot of time talking about music and playing a bunch. And then I think Greg, Josh and Anna have a long history of playing music together, for decades. [laughs]

Josh Johnson: I don’t even know how long [laughs]. Yeah we played music together for a long time. But I think that when everyone came together, there was a very natural chemistry that kind of created sparks.

You mentioned ETA. Can you give me an idea of what represented for Los Angeles and its creative music community?

Gregory Uhlmann: It was a special place because the programmer, Ryan Julio, was basically letting people in and letting them play whatever they wanted. It was a really breeding ground for trying out new projects and just experimenting. I feel like the center point of all that was the fact that Jeff Parker was playing every Monday night. It became the kind of situation where people went to meet their friends and see musicians they love, a very cool melting pot. It was very important, we miss it for sure.

Jeremia Chiu: I’m curious to hear Josh, how that felt from your side? Because when I moved from Chicago in 2014 — from a scene that has a lot of places dedicated to experimental, improvisational free music — I wasn’t finding many places like that in L.A. . Then when Jeff started doing his Monday residence I was like “oh, this the spot I’m going to go to”. And that’s when I saw you play Josh, and was like “wow this guy has incredible tone and interplay”. As you guys started to grow, I din’t realize you had a streak in that place before that.

Josh Johnson: I think it kind of grew into what is like know as. But physically is a small, long, narrow bar. Over a number of years it went from bar to community space, it developed very organically. When we first started playing there with Jeff, there would be a few people and a lot of loud talking. As the music evolved and the scene grew around it, on some night it became a kind of focus and listening space, and also the place a lot of artists and musicians came to hang out. It changed a lot of musicians experience of community in Los Angeles, especially in North-East L.A. I think it was a catalyst to a lot of new creative ideas and projects.

It seems, and I think this is a worldwide and timeless thing, that this kind of crucial small places, exist for a while and then disappear. Do you have any thoughts in this, do you think is the only way it can go?

Booker Stardrum: I think you’re pointing out the problems of capitalism. We are living in a time when we are seeing the problems in real time. In the United States the arts are not very supported by the government and that dribbles down and affects music spaces. Spaces like ETA just can’t exist for very long, it’s the reality of the situation when you have very little arts funding and support. It’s just a natural progression.

Of the system we live in…

Booker Stardrum: Yes, it’s a systemic issue, places are gonna close because of the finances. Even if ETA was a very successful space, if you went on a Monday night. But it wasn’t busy every night, the rent was extremely high, there were crazy expenses. Ultimately it comes to the bottom line: can a business sustain itself?

Jeremia Chiu: I mean, funding would be incredible to support creativity. But you also have to build a community of people that are willing to partecipate, week after week, and be ok with some of that weeks not hitting or watching people figuring it out live. You Josh sat there every Monday for years and years, you watched it flow, going from nobody in there to being a five, ten fifteen dollars cover — it just grew. That’s because people wanted to be there.

Josh Johnson: Yes, people who want to go on the journey with you. It’s interesting that we mentioned capitalism. I feel that we often talk about the product that’s made and that we consume, while I think the real magic is in the sharing the process. Part of the magic of ETA was that people were there to be a part of that and take witness of the process of creating something, versus just the thing that has been created.

Jeremia Chiu: I mean, if you ask Ryan, he would say that when he announced the closing tons and tons of people came out because they were like “it’s going to go away!”. And his response was “where were you all of this time?! We were doing this for years”.

That’s why I mentioned it’s a worldwide thing. You described a dynamic that took place in the exact same way in my hometown of Rome — Italy. Not so long ago an experimental music venue closed and hundreds, if not thousands, of people mourned like crazy, while the owner was asking exactly the same thing: “where were you all this time?”

Jeremia Chiu: So maybe it has to do with this capitalist listener consumption. People threshold has become incredibly short, like “if I don’t get the thing right away I don’t want to sit here and find out whether is going to be good or bad”.

People don’t want to know how the sausage is made…

[everyone laughs]

The Chicago and Los Angeles music scenes seem to be more and more intertwined. What’s the relationship between the two cities right now?

Gregory Uhlmann: I think there was a bit of a migration of the Chicago scene to L.A. — for sure.

Why is that?

Gregory Uhlmann: Everyone had its own reasons. I went for school, as Josh did.

Jeremia Chiu: I moved for the weather [everyone laughs]

Gregory Uhlmann: I feel like Chicago people tend to find each other, not even intentionally, maybe there’s a frequency [laughs]. But yes, it’s been fun to see this sort of connection, and also to take that spirit back to Chicago. I was kind of worried to lose that connections when I moved to L.A. but it’s been nice that it sustained through these folks — Jeff Parker and other people.

Jeremia Chiu: L.A. is a creative city. When you live in L.A. and you say that you work in the “industry”, people assume that you’re referring to the entertainment industry. While in Chicago that would be the restaurant industry. There’s a very different feeling. L.A. felt like this sprawling mass of stuff, especially over the last fifteen years. Things have been bubbling, post Stones Throw and the post-beat scene, so there’s alway this feeling of: “what’s the next thing that is going to happen”. While in Chicago you have all of this really rich history that it keeps going and going. It feels like a more incapsulated space, versus one that is very open and where you really have to create your own space.

Do you think that L.A. and Chicago have a specific music DNA and that those two are colliding?

Jeremia Chiu: Yeah maybe. I think to your question also a big factor is International Anthem. It’s a label that has spent a lot of time careful curating a staple of artists with a mentality that many label today are not pursuing, which is like: how each of these artists that we are working with are connected to each other? That has created a very natural interplay among people that are traversing between the two cities.

One of the question I wanted to ask you was in fact this: what is International Anthem doing right? Record after record they just seem to always get it…

Booker Stardrum: They are connecting and fostering a community of really talented musicians. They are really great at finding the web and exploiting, with a positive connotation, that community of artists that know each other. Also helping in building those connections too.

Josh Johnson: I feel like they are deeply engaged with records culture. The kind of people that are digging through records, reading the credits and try to make connections between each album, between names and musicians. I think they invested a lot in connecting with local records store in a way that is really not reflective of how music is distributed today. There is a more direct connection to stores and the people that frequent them. It’s something they have been doing for years and the fruits of that labour are being seen widely right now.

Are you guys diggers yourselves? Do you like to go to record shops and get lost looking for stuff?

Booker Stardrum: I still buy records and listen to them but I’m not a super collector.

Gregory Uhlmann: I’ve fallen of digging in records store a little bit, but growing up was such a fun thing to do, going to Dave’s Records or Tower Records and just walk through the aisles. It’s such a nostalgic thing for me. Also knowing that someone has bought our record after going to a record shop and hearing it there, means so much more that how many streams you have. The way International Anthem has this process, feels more connected, personal and meaningful. It feels worth the effort: there’s been care put into it.

Jeremia Chiu: That to me there’s an experience we all probably had. All of these times in our lives when we have chosen a record that we don’t know how is going to sound like. You spend money on it, take it home, put it on and you’re like: “oh, that’s not what I thought was going to be”. But it takes some time, sometimes you end up really loving that record and sometimes not. That is the same tether to going to ETA every week, picking a random Wednesday night to go see some people you don’t know.

Booker Stardrum: I think International Anthem fosters that. There’s a consistency in the releases. You asked what they are doing right: I think people really want to listen the next thing that is going to come out. A lot of people buy every single records that they’ll put out.

Gregory Uhlmann: I think this is also a question of filter. It’s the difference between a professional restaurant reviewer versus a Yelp rating. Everything is filtered through their ears, their taste. That means something more than pulling everyone, it’s a very narrow point of view — it’s their point of view. This is something we are not used to anymore, it has became very unusual seeing people going off their instinct and taste without knowing if someone else will follow. It’s trusting your taste.

Josh Johnson: If we look at it more generally and culturally speaking, the world curation comes to mind. I do think that a lot of us miss that, things that are not dictated by an algorithm. That’s the world they created. It’s a very different experience of being led by a playlist.

Jeremia Chiu: Taste and curation should be synonyms. You have this idea of curation, historically, as something incredibly well researched and thoughtful. That’s International Anthem’s approach. It’s funny working with them from record to record, because you won’t find people that have listened to the stuff you have worked on more than them [laughs]. They are really and truly invested in putting out the music they believe in and putting a ton of work and effort into it. So naturally they are not going to release something if they don’t fully believe in it, to the point that they’ll push back and have a dialogue witch each artist, encouraging to work on the music because they feel it could be even better. It really helps.

We talked a bunch about Los Angeles and Chicago. Given the fact that we are in Europe right now, I wanted to ask you if there are specific countries and scenes outsides of the States that are inspiring you right now.

Jeremia Chiu: Right now in the background of this interview there’s a combination of Michael Jackson and chilling tones that is creating something [laughs]. I feel like we are sharing music a lot between ourselves. I always listen to what’s happening in other scenes, paying attention to smaller labels. For example International Anthem is connected very well with the London scene, but in general I’m always listening to what is out there. But truly what I have been into is seventies Italian minimalist music [laughs]. I’m obsessed with that. It’s the last realm I went deeply into.

You have to come to Italy, you’ll find a ton of records!

Gregory Uhlmann: Please take us, we want to go!

Well, if as we established it’s difficult to organize concerts in Los Angeles, you can’t even begin to understand how difficult it is in Italy…Maximum level! But I’ll try. Booker, Josh, what are you guys listening to right now?

Booker Stardrum: A lot of dub: Scientist, King Tubby. Just classic stuff.

Jeremia Chiu: Josh in ON every record! [everyone laughs]

Josh Johnson: It’s not true…But that’s a difficult question to answer. Something that I’m always going back to is an old collection of field recordings from different parts of the world. I listen to that more than a lot of other things [laughs]. It’s something Radio France produced, regional music. It’s always fascinating and inspiring.

I love albums made as yours, with the Davis/Macero and Can method of editing live performances. Is this something that you use all the time or something that came up from the ETA residency and was the right way to approach that material?

Booker Stardrum: That music was recorded stereo to tape. So when we got the files it was one single stereo track. We were editing from that with no stems or anything else. It was kind of a limitation, at first we were wondering “how is this going to work”, but it winded up being a very cool limitation. It meant we had to get creative and find nice edit points, but also ways to treat and process other sections, overlap things and so on. I think we really wanted that album to maintain the live feeling but also feel like a studio record. We just went in and cut through it. It’s more or less what’s happening with the next record, except we are working with a combination of multitracks and stereo to tape. I’ve been working this way in other projects as well and is very cool, editing live improvisations down to something [he mimicks a chef’s kiss].

Jeremia Chiu: With this group you have five people that also have solo projects and are solo producers. Everyone has is own approach and we are not the kind of band that sits down intentionally to write a song, rehearse it well and only then it goes to the studio to record. It’s actually the opposite: let’s capture everything we have ever done and than go and use this material to create work from. It feels the opposite approach to a traditional “band”.

Booker Stardrum: It’s also worth mentioning that all our concerts are completely improvised.

You mentioned this approach was a limitation. But of course from limitations, creativity blossoms, because you have to find a way to go around it. If you’d have to intentionally put another limitation, what would that be? Maybe everyone switches instruments?

Gregory Uhlmann: I don’t think you want to hear me on the sax. [laughs]

Jeremia Chiu: You know, we were playing in all these configurations, you would have a duo of just Josh and myself, or a trio with Greg, Book and Ana. There are all these different ways for us to play and I think that feels in some ways like a good limitation.

Gregory Uhlmann: Yes we talked about doing that, I think it would be a fun record. Different duos as a starting point and then working from there. I think doing something like that with different combinations would be a fun way to go around limitations.

Another thing that I find very interesting about this method is that you become the editor of yourself. Something that I feel is more close to the role of a film or book editor. Does this resonate with you? And if so, do you have movies or books that inspire your approach to editing?

Jeremia Chiu: I love that actually! I was talking about this yesterday. The way that I piece things together when I hear the material, I’m conscious you got to find a cohesive narrative, but you also have all of these sentences everywhere, snippets of music. Long spans, short spans. You can re-contextualize and re-piece everything together in a new poetry. That is very important to me, we talked a lot about this as a band in the begging. We don’t want to be “oh this is improvised!”. The selling point for us is that we are able to create a record that you listen to and you’re not sure how it is made, but there’s a specific feeling, a story and an energy there.

Booker Stardrum: I think we are making non-linear live music. The thing is that when we reach the album form, it has a pretty linear path, in a way. But we’re getting there using non-linear musical ideas and passages, to find a story.

Josh Johnson: I think is something that reveals itself when you are in it and you’re working on the stuff. I think it’s also one of the interesting things about everyone in the band being a producer and editor. Someone can make a choice that surprises me and opens a new door. To your question related to references in editing I always think about Italo Calvino and his short stories. Specifically “Invisible Cities”. I don’t know how to articulate it, but it feels very connected to how I edit music. It’s a strong reference point to me.

Wow, I did’t anticipate to talk about Italo Calvino today, thank you! What about you guys?

Gregory Uhlmann: I really like things that develop slowly and over time, in both movies and literature. I noticed that in my editing style. I mean that maybe there’s one element that slowly start to change while everything else remains the same. It has been interesting seeing how different everyone editing style is, and I think that comes from a general reference point of taste.

Jeremia Chiu: I’m thinking about two different things. When we perform live it kind of feels like a structuralist film. You have specific parameters, with the camera that’s on it and just doesn’t go away for the entire time. When we edit it’s like the film “Los Angeles Plays Itself”: telling a story through other stories. This is why I was talking about Italian minimalism earlier. People like Battiato traversed folks songs in music concrete, ambient, noise. There are these hard cuts in the sonic impact that you don’t hear all the time. It’s like they are just cutting to the next scene, but it feels very cohesive in the way that they do it.

I don’t know why, but talking about this makes me want to ask you something: do you have a favorite sound right now? Something specific, that you want everywhere in your music.

Booker Stardrum: This will sound self indulgent, but I have this flat ride, I love the sound of it. We were talking about this earlier, I think it changed the way a I play a little bit. I really want to hear that in different contexts. As a drummer you are always searching for different sounds and instruments, you try a lot of different shit and I feel like a landed on something I really like. That’s my selfish answer but it’s the first that came to mind [laughs]

Gregory Uhlmann: I don’t know if it’s a favorite sound, but the other day I heard someone voicing an organ in a church. It was kind of creepy but at the same time incredibile. Hearing this wave, the different frequencies changing in real time and filling your ears. I really enjoyed that [laughs]

Booker Stardrum: I’ve always loved breathy sounds. Flute or a saxophone, something where you can feel the body in the sound, I’m drown to that.

What about you Josh?

Josh Johnson: [the horrible background music fills the reflective silence, he laughs] With this in the background is hard hearing sounds that I love in my imagination!

Jeremia Chiu: What you would like to be hearing right now instead of this song? One sound instead of this. [laughs]

Josh Johnson: It’s a general answer but cello and bass clarinet.

Jeremia Chiu: I love bass clarinet. Actually in the last recording I did with Marta, I kept in all the things she didn’t want, basically the moments in between your breaths when you can hear the clicks sounds. I love leaving them in.

Booker Stardrum: It’s a reminder that there’s a human playing.

I’ll follow up with another strange question. Given the fact that you musically know each other very well, do you have a favorite thing about each other — a strictly musical characteristic?

Jeremia Chiu: That’s a really good question.

Booker Stardrum: I feel like Josh is telling a story. Sometimes when I hear your melodic character there’s deep storytelling happening. Maybe it’s because I play a rhythmic instrument and I’m almost always playing, while Josh plays an instrument that is coming in and out more. When he enters it’s almost like a character entering a story.

Josh Johnson: It’s something very hard to articulate, because it’s explored so deeply through sound. I’ll talk about Greg: I think he is one of one on the guitar. In many ways, but he has a deep rhythmic language. Often when I hear him play I think that you would need three guitar players to do what he’s doing, this beautiful interweaving and interlocking of things.

Gregory Uhlmann: …thank you [shyly]

Josh Johnson: It’s group therapy! [everyone laughs]

Jeremia Chiu: I think that from the audience prospective they don’t know who’s making what sound. That’s fun for them, but the truth is that WE often don’t know who’s making what sound! It always happens when I go back to hear the live recordings, realizing “wow that was Greg!”. Like it could be bells of flute, but it’s a guitar. I like when that interplay happens, when Josh and Greg catch each other in a melodic dance and there’s this moment when they are working it out in real time.

Gregory Uhlmann: What’s so special about this group is that everyone thinks like an arranger. It’s always such a group interplay. Also everyone sounds like no other player. Everyone has its own approach to playing and it’s been very fun discovering that together.

What’s next for SLM?

Booker Stardrum: We are working on a new record. Hopefully finishing sort of soon. It’s a fairly similar process…

Jeremia Chiu: It will be different.

Booker Stardrum: It will be different but the process is similar.

Jeremia Chiu: Yeah we have not finished exploring that concept of editing.

Josh Johnson: It’s been interesting also, and this differs from the first record, having the editing approach, but now we are also playing shows at the same time. It’s hard to say how this is informing the records but I feel like it’s happening.

Booker Stardrum: There’s a dialogue happening right now between the live performances and the record that we are making, that it’s also all live performances.

Jeremia Chiu: I mean, we are a very strange group. We have never rehearsed, we don’t talk about the music, what we are going to play. But also what’s next too is that everyone has new music coming out individually, the most recent is the Uhlmann/Johnson/Wilkes record, which is excellent. Everyone has got some stuff in the works. I feel it would be cool that when you hear SML you also hear the universe of everyones stuff. All of these different parts together, because in some way they feel like other SML’s records.

Before I let you go, is there something I didn’t ask or that you really want to say?

Booker Stardrum: We’d love to come to Italy, please take us to Italy!

Jeremia Chiu: Also shouting out some people. Bryce Gonzales is a pivotal part of our sound and experience. Jeff Parker, International Anthem, Scott and David. They all helped form the approach and the music.

Thalassophobia, the intense and irrational fear of deep bodies of water. Depth is frightening, of course: what begins as an evolutionary response becomes psychological. Marine depths easily turn into psychic ones. Descending to the bottom doesn’t always guarantee that we’ll resurface intact; we’re afraid of discovering what lies buried beneath that fluid mass.

And yet, that’s precisely where the magic hides. In those depths invisible we can plunge our hands in, remain silent and attentive, discover, and create. So let’s instead speak, staying with Greek, of Thalassophilia: the force that drives Les Biologistes Marins, the duo composed of Beatrice Miniaci and Anton Sconosciuto.

For them, water is the origin of everything—of a music shaped by the practice of deep listening, field recordings, ambient, and avant-jazz. Their latest album, Looking Out For Dolphins (released by Jipo Records and Kohlhaas Records), is a treasure of beauty that cradles the listener: it sketches light, fluid narratives, enveloping and guiding while leaving all the space needed to move freely and construct one’s own listening path.

I reached out to them for a series of questions about the project, from its origins to the album, passing through their favorite places and the balance between composition and improvisation.

How did you two meet?

We actually met in Amsterdam. We were both studying at the Conservatory there. A couple of years later, we realized we had both moved to Rome for different reasons, and after discovering our shared passion for improvisation, we started doing sessions together. That’s where everything began.

When and how did the actual project start?

It started at the beginning of 2024, specifically in January. Marcello Rotondella —a dear friend and an artist we collaborate with and deeply admire—heard some recordings of our improvs and asked us to play at Fanfulla a few weeks later. The project basically came to life on the spot, to the point that the name Les Biologistes Marins started out as a bit of a joke—we claimed to be PhD students at the University of Bordeaux, specifically in the field of marine mammal songs.

Where does the environment end and the sound begin in your work, and vice versa? In other words: are you trying to document reality and transform it through art, or the opposite?

Great question! There’s definitely always a mix of the two. Everything we do stems from a fairly extreme principle of spontaneity. Every field recording has value as a document tied to a specific moment in time and space. As a result, every improvisation—out of which our pieces eventually crystallize—leans on this attempt to capture the moment. At the same time, for now, the balance leans more toward the environment. Our working method has always started by listening to and recording a specific surrounding environment. By forcing ourselves to build music on top of it, we’ve discovered new compositional methods and sound worlds that go beyond our previous tricks or influences.

Why is water the central element of the project?

In 2023, Beatrice worked for four months as a flutist on a cruise ship. Even though working on such a ship might seem like the furthest thing from the principles of our project, it’s fascinating how it actually played a central role in shaping our concept. After a few improvisations together, we started using some of the videos she had recorded while on the ocean in the most far-flung places: Indonesia, New Zealand, even Easter Island. We tried to draw inspiration from the emotions those images stirred in us. And that’s where everything began: hydrophones, site-specific works, etc. Sometimes the things that are born in the most spontaneous ways, without precise goals, are the ones that end up developing the best results.

What are your favorite bodies of water and why?

It’s hard to choose. Every body of water has a deep connection to the place where it lies and therefore to whoever inhabits it, whether humans, animals, plants, or microbes. So the real question is: what is our favorite place with a profound relationship to water? What inspires us the most is deep water—the unknown it can hide. That goosebump-inducing feeling of not knowing what lies beneath the surface is, artistically speaking, incredibly fertile; like a kind of sea-level vertigo—literally. The title of our new album, Looking Out For Dolphins, actually comes from this feeling: one day we found ourselves on a boat in Alghero, on the route where the local dolphins supposedly pass every day, right at the time when they usually appear. We didn’t see a single one, yet right after that we ended up in the studio and composed one of our favorite tracks, inspired by the feeling that this potential sighting had sparked in us. Without a doubt, the deeper the water, the greater the potential—and we don’t even need to put hydrophones in it!

How do you think experimental music can converse with contemporary ecological, social, or political issues?

The two “fields,” if we want to call them that, are deeply connected. Day by day we notice how people who become passionate about our work also tend to share certain views about the climate, environmental respect, and respect for others in general. Maybe the connection between experimentalism and these issues comes from the need to constantly renew the language in order to make room for important conversations that are consistently and surprisingly suppressed—or even nonexistent—in the “mainstream” language, whether artistic or political.

So perhaps those who want to speak about and channel certain themes need to do so on a frequency that’s not too saturated—through a side channel. And people who want to receive that message automatically adjust their receptiveness. We ourselves have been working a lot on this music because we feel it takes us somewhere different from what we learned while studying or performing throughout our lives up until now. We aim to make something that sounds new to our own ears, even though we’re aware of the musical genres our work approaches. In any case, we really enjoy working on music that first and foremost makes us reflect on environmental themes, the protection of the sea and waterways, but also the safeguarding of our mental health through slowness, silence, and listening. It’s a practice we began first and foremost for ourselves, to do ourselves some good. Maybe that’s coming through in our sounds—if that’s one of the reasons why what we do resonates with people, that would be wonderful to discover.

Do you have a specific approach to field recording—any models or methods?

We’re big fans, like many others, of Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening methods. So when we do field recordings, we’re trying to capture those sounds you can focus on and isolate when you listen to your surroundings a certain way. Beyond that, we often find ourselves searching for whatever in the environmental sound vaguely resembles musical parameters: small rhythms, melodies, or even something that recalls harmony. It’s incredibly interesting to reverse the process and rediscover in nature (and often in the polluting interferences created by human sound) the basic principles of those musical parameters that have become so deeply ingrained in our shared sonic consciousness.

Which cities or specific places, environments inspire you the most?

We’ve been fortunate in recent years to visit places we never expected to see—Armenia and Moldova, to name a couple. Those experiences definitely taught us to find uniqueness in every place and to understand how different locations can surprise and inspire you for hidden, strange reasons when you least expect it. We feel very connected to all the places where we’ve brought and tried to apply our approach.

Which places are you most excited to explore next?

We’re going to Japan very soon, and we can’t wait to discover what it has to offer. It’s probably the place from which we’ve drawn the most sonic inspiration—at a certain point we realized how much our listening to artists like Hiroshi Yoshimura, MEITEI, or Tomoyoshi Date had shaped our sound.

What is the balance between improvisation and composition in your pieces? How do the two relate?

All our tracks originate from improvisations created on top of the raw material of field recordings. So we ask ourselves what we can add to that foundational sound with our instruments, rather than the other way around. We usually try to record everything we do and then sift through all the recordings. From this process, we extract what we like most from an improvisation—combined with a field recording, as mentioned before, or with the description of a place, an image, or a mood. Then a long phase begins in which we “reproduce” these selected ideas. They slowly change shape, develop, and in a way “crystallize.”

By the time the compositions reach our live performances, they have essentially turned from improvisations into fully formed compositions, with rules, cues, specific moments, and many characteristics decided in advance. That’s where water comes in: it’s always a little different depending on the place where it resonates, the container, the amplification, and many other factors. Water gives us the element of randomness, which inspires us to interpret our compositions as if they were once again improvisations. The parameters we know are always open to our interpretation in the moment, so no live set ever sounds like another.

What is your relationship with Jipo Records?

We’ve been friends with Jipo for a long time—especially Anton, who has released most of his recent work with them. We love the care they put into every release and the aesthetic choices they make, both graphically and sonically. We truly think they’re one of the most interesting and fruitful independent music realities in Italy, and we hope more and more people notice that soon! We also absolutely have to mention Pablo, the graphic designer we work with thanks to Jipo, who played a fundamental role in shaping the visual and conceptual structure of the project. Our latest release was also done in collaboration with Kohlhaas Records, another great label from Trentino that we were lucky to connect with recently.

What are you listening to these days?

As mentioned earlier, Japanese ambient has been a huge part of our listening for some time now. Outside of that field we listen to a lot of Battisti and Jessica Pratt. Individually, Anton’s top three this year are: Cameron Winter, Foxwarren, and Bruno Berle; while Beatrice’s: Winter Family, Duffy X Uhlmann, and Nic T.

Jennae Santos’s energy is contagious. I had the pleasure of meeting the Brooklyn-based artist some time ago at a festival in Portugal, where they were presenting their project gushes. I didn’t know what to expect, and when they started playing (alongside the excellent drummer Matt Evans), they completely blew everyone away. An intricate mix of polyrhythms, theatricality, punk fury, and meticulously crafted sounds — sharp as a spear. All infused with a genuine taste for performance that felt anything but contrived, seamlessly intertwined with the music.

Truly a “Delicious Collision”: just like the title of their newly released album on Switch Hit Records and PTP — and the perfect occasion to finally carry out this interview. It’s an experience that’s hard to describe any other way: it both soothes and slaps the listener at once, offering a key to enter Jennae’s creative world. They spoke to me about difficult moments, rediscovering their creative spark, finding a sense of community, the importance of nature, guitars, and their Filipino heritage.

When and how did Gushes come to life?

2016 was a period of rapid schism, destabilization, heartbreak, and regeneration for me. In the course of two weeks, I broke up with my romantic partner of four years, the band we had together dissolved, and then we were abruptly evicted from our apartment. I lost thousands of dollars and different friends graciously offered me space to crash for three months while I recovered.

That summer, I went to shows almost every night to stave off loneliness, stoking new and beautiful connections in that magical late-night-into-early morning hour. With a full and open heart, I discovered new music shared by new friends. Other artists told me, “I’m excited to see what you do next” or “I would play with you!” Though I was crashing on couches and rebuilding my sense of home, I felt empowered by the Brooklyn music community. In July, a friend asked me to play a concert series they were organizing in August. At the time, I had no new music, and no official band, but chance encounters opened sparkling relations with musicians I admired, and illuminated a trail of “yeses.”

Years before this, I really struggled to find collaborators with aligned interests and schedules, but for some reason at this point in time—the summer of 2016, I found some lucky momentum and met those people immediately. I said to myself, “Follow the open door.” The first show was in August 2016, under the moniker Wsabi Fox. We released an EP in 2018 called GUSHING. In 2021, I altered the name to W.S.A.B.I., an acronym for Warped Sangot And Boss Interior, as an ode to the Bisayan sickle as both a weapon of resistance and a tool for farming. Then, throughout the recording process, I considered a permanent name change to better define a fundamental ethos of my practice, pulling from the title of the EP. “gushes” was then christened in summer of 2023.

“Gushes” refers to an open cry, a waterfall, magmatic eruption, superbloom, pheremonic sporulation, blood rush, abundant harvest, orgasm, thunderous joy, painful release, and other unbound expressions of liberation. Simply put, it means an abundance of life force.

What are the main differences and points of connection between Gushes and Jennae and can you tell me a little about yourself and your path?

I make art under the moniker “gushes,” as a protection spell from measuring my personal life by my career trajectory, and to create a healthy boundary between the heightened mythic state of art practice and my softer day-to-day inner world. The lines blur between gushes and myself in spirit, evoked by the tenuous and hyper present power of live performance. There’s a psychedelic attunement that happens in my heart paired with an architectural rendering in my brain when I world-build as gushes. The mortal reflection of that experience, myself as a person functioning under capitalism, manifests in how I love, explore, care, make food and cultivate relations. Gushes is the most spiritually saturated version of how I move through the world.

You’re a multidisciplinary artist working across music, performance, and visual art, under different monikers. How do you navigate between these worlds and decide which identity a project belongs to? In what ways do these creative identities feed and enrich one another?

My two main artist monikers are gushes and Eternal Oyster. Their worlds are connected through the act of ceremony. My goal for both projects is to transform collective attention into intention by giving agency and gesture over to an audience-becoming-coconspirators. Gushes approaches ceremony through music and sound inspired by love and power, while Eternal Oyster builds it through durational event scores inspired by animal architecture and natural cycles. A project can sometimes belong to both identities, I’m not strict about compartmentalizing them, but the site and context of a work might be more aligned with one over the other. Gushes easily plays concerts at music venues with an allotted timeframe and available soundsystem, records music, and enacts production-oriented storytelling as an extension of a set of live music or sound art, with a narrative approach. Eternal Oyster activates best outdoors in nature or presented as a sensory installation where mess can be made, embracing abstraction. I see them as two different arms of my whole body of work. Together, they form two interdisciplinary containers that satisfy my multi-faceted creative inclination at any given moment.

Could you walk us through the album track by track, perhaps sharing a distinctive feature or an anecdote behind each one?

“Delicious Collision” is an art-prog mythos on love and power. The album occurs in a series of portals— psychedelic convergences of ancestral, elemental, and erotic spirits whose dance maps pathways for love and power. These portals are scored by climatic unison melodies and grandiose swells through each song.

“Game One” is an underworld teleplay. I dreamt of kneeling in a sea cave, watching wisps of smoke snake out from the sand. The initial guitar on this track, a metallic and watery tone inspired by kulintang, scores this moment. I began digging. The smoke thickened into bodily forms. They roared out from the earth and surrounded me— ancestors speaking in my grandparents’ native tongues (Aklanon and Cebuano). They began to dance. “Game One” is a personal Filipinx mythos, an epic riddle match between Super Ego and Trickster archetypes, tied to immigrant resilience, re-indigenization, and the game we play to survive.

“CUT” comes from the rage place. The song slams against modes of patriarchal abuse and microaggressions we encounter daily. While writing this song, I lived in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where my commute saw colossal steel– the underbelly of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, massive barges in the East River, the multistory Smith 9th Street subway station under construction. The daily inundation of metallic clamor, combined with a nascent Kali practice (an Indigenous Filipino fighting system using blades) and a love of kulintang percussion inspired the guitar tone that forms the bones of CUT. My Asian American femme comrades Sondra Sun Odeon and Micaela Tobin (White Boy Scream), both of whose repertoire challenges white supremacist patriarchy, lend a weather system of vocals to this track. “CUT” is how we bend metal.

In its music video form, my own cinematographic debut, “Stick Figures” is a nonbinary birthing spell gagged and screaming from the umbilical tongue— a final dance with a version of self who must die in order to live closer to liberation. Bound and extended by the fabrics of psychic gristle, “Stick Figures” moves through the ritual schism of birth— an indignant intervention between archetypes Mother Trickster (Kris Seto) and Baby Beast (Che’Li), and then floral devastation-release at the peak of a waterfall. This allegory is one of visceral transformation via affirmation of identity, stewarded by past and future versions of self into the present. An exercise in Kapwa– a concept in Indigenous Filipino psychology that refers to seeing oneself in the other, the music video illuminates queer Asian Americana in the midst of the Catskill Mountains. Watch the music video here. The track scores the salt of seduction and the lunge of intimate tension by converging G-funk with prog rock. In “Stick Figures”, bodies are one, vibrating to the storied textures of land.

Kicking off side B, “Mmmh” is a sensually-complex lovesong blooming in contemporary classical and California psychedelia. The arrangement is all about tension-build with tender harmonies who sing of pleasure-autonomy and eternal romance before bursting into mortal release.

“Yo banana boY” is about concurrent, eternal cycles of life and death embodied in flourishing ecosystems and sustainable harvest. Its polyrhythm is a metaphor for ecological synchronization. I developed the song through countless experimental performances, where I’d offered seeds to the audience. The music stacks and interweaves melodies over a simmering groove like an afternoon jungle or thriving garden. Then, it swings into a nocturnal hunt with icy piano, mating call flutes, and a soft, chilling decay. My musical inspo includes Kate Bush’s gymnastic falsetto, Elis Regina’s grit and Musica Popular Brasileira-inspired grooves, Santana’s SG squeal, and the jazz noir of Audrey Horne’s Twin Peaks theme.

“Passion Play” relishes in seduction akin to Salip, a courting Philippine folk dance, before wielding decolonization protest anthem. The song cross-pollinates musical traditions synonymous with cultural liberation: jazz, salsa, and soca. Once more, metallic percussion via a special tongue head for snare drum references the pulsing clang of kulintang.

There’s a strong progressive influence throughout the record — especially in “Stick Figures.” Is that part of your musical background? Who are your main artistic references in this genre?

As someone with no institutional musical training but substantial theatre study from childhood through my early 20’s, I’m really just a big fan of 1970s Prog, in the vein of King Crimson & YES, for its dramatic, maximalist composition and epic performance storytelling. What you hear on the album is a version of Prog derived from pure adoration and absorption through the filter of a passionate amateur. While some of my collaborators on this record come from classical music background, and were therefore, equipped to realize these chamber arrangements, I approach composing Prog with an enthusiasm for polyrhythm, what I could write for strings and winds on guitar and my voice, and personal mythmaking dramaturgy.

The affinity for irregular rhythms and odd time signatures is apparent. Where does that fascination come from?

I feel odd time signatures more naturally for some reason. Even time is much harder for me. My affinity for off-kilter rhythms is often informed by how I use a loop pedal— the foundation of my music. I don’t believe in quantizing loops live via electronics. I prefer to organically set time to the tempo and energy of the moment and the drummer I’m playing with. There’s a divine imperfection in a loop that wriggles out from the grid of 4/4. I make my own grid through repeating a guitar riff cut to any length it wants to move, and feel into how I can layer responsive lines. The result often becomes “irregular rhythms” that lock into each other.

What about guitar tones?

I really enjoy conducting solo sound labs in my studio with my guitar and pedalboard for hours on end. On the record, I play a Fender Jaguarillo and a Gibson SG through a variety of pedals and amps. I love these specific guitars because of the range of tonality they cover in the variety of pickup settings. The Jaguarillo has both single-coil and humbucker pickups, while the SG has P-90s. All the specific pedals are listed on the back cover of the LP. My three favorite tones are: the Game One intro and main guitar loop in CUT, which is my Fender Jaguarillo on the humbucker pickup through a Moog Minifooger Ring mod and short delay on a BOSS DD-3. CUT additionally has EHS Micro POG on it for extra girth; my favorite way to warp sound into a psychedelic soupy frenzy is to simultaneously generate long drones with my Electroharmonix SuperEgo synth engine pedal while hitting the octave bend down button on my BOSS RC-30 looper, which happens towards the end of Game One and Mmmh; the intro guitar solo on Yo banana boY is very much Carlos Santana-inspired with my SG through Earthquaker Devices Dunes MOSFET voice setting.

To my ears, the decades that most strongly shape your sound are the 1970s and the early 2000s. Would you agree?

I would! I love how the culture of psychedelics colliding with revolutionary movements in the 1970s opened pathways for dreaming up and fighting for liberation. I grew up in the early 2000s with the advent of the internet and with it, unprecedented access to a new world of fantasy, absurdity, anonymity, and persona.

On that note, if you could be reborn in another era and make art within that period, which would it be, and why?

I would love to be reborn as an oyster in the bay waters of pre-colonial Lenapehoking, known today as New York Harbor. I’m interested in experiencing time through the body of a mollusk, its stillness, its close-knit community, its vital role in a thriving ecosystem, with the artform of pearl-making. What is it like to create beautiful objects as a means of protection (sand / debris entering one’s shell)? I’m inspired by artful emergence in nature and how they ultimately teach and inspire humanity.

What aspects of your Filipino heritage do you feel enrich your music?

I’m very inspired by kulintang music. There’s a ton of reference to that sound and pulse throughout the album via other means of metallic percussion and my guitar through a ring modulator in percussive sequences. Additionally, the album begins with my maternal grandparents speaking their native Filipino tongues– Cebuano and Aklanon. Filipino history is rich with resistance movements and warrior spirit, which fuel the more cutting decolonization anthems of my music. The vibrant colors and flavors of the archipelago from turquoise waters, the glowing leaves of banana trees, the bright sweetness of mango and jackfruit, influence a vivid pleasure-centric perspective via gushes’ love songs. While I’m not directly referencing Kundiman, Philippine lovesongs, there’s a devotional romance in my music akin to that balladic drama, but through the filter of California psychedelia.

How do you perceive the relationship between American culture and the Filipino diaspora?

Wow, there’s really too much to unpack here. I grew up in the California Bay Area of the US— I am a second generation Fil-Am. My grandparents on both sides came from the Philippines, via service in the US armed forces and a nursing program for their citizenship. Like many immigrant cultures of the Global South, I understand how that lineage and reason for diaspora is fraught with brain drain, extractivism of natural resources, and indoctrination into Western supremacism. Especially in the last 5-10 years I’ve seen great waves of brown artists reaching for decolonization study, Indigenous psychology and combat, food sovereignty, and Queer Trans community-building to reclaim and re-member a true sense of spiritual rootedness that feels feminist, queer, nourishing, and grounded in collective liberation. That’s all to say that the relationship that I most identify with, between American culture and Filipino diaspora, is currently one of profound healing through art, music, food, organising, and connecting that medicine with other cultures who have parallel histories of colonization.

What are you listening to these days, and which artists would you recommend to someone wanting to enter the world of Gushes?

First of all, I feel very lucky to be in community with and witness to many groundbreaking, DIY-minded artists, each of whom inspire and compel me to dedicate my life to my art practice. To enter the world of gushes, please go listen to Lollise, Lou Tides, Ava Luna, White Boy Scream, and Mirrored Fatality. While the music styles across these artists vary at ton, and you I’m never exactly sonically referencing them in my own music; it’s their visionary intention that align with my spirit. Most recently, I’ve been super inspired by the music of Buenos Aires-based artist, Carola Zelaschi. Carola dm’d me on Instagram shortly after I released Delicious Collision, with a lot of excitement at how our projects relate. I was amazed and obsessed listening to their latest releases, “Descargas Eléctricas Occipitales” and “CAROLO”. I really hope we can collaborate in the future. Other artists, beyond my personal reach, who directly influenced the “Delicious Collision” LP include King Crimson, YES, Combo Chimbita, Meshell Ndegeocello, Mike Patton, Michael White, Hermeto Pascoal, and of course some kulintang pieces by Aga Mayo Butocan and the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company. These references are truly all across the stylistic board, but they’re all who I was listening to at the time of writing.

Shhh/Peceful curatorial journey continues!

Hey! If you’re in Rome or Milan this weekend, don’t miss the Italian premiere of Chicago duo Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer (International Anthem), curated by Shhh/Peaceful.

Saturday, November 15 at Studio 33, Rome – limited spots, book your place here.

Sunday, November 16 at Combo, Milan, in collaboration with Chullu Agency.

It’s all so boringly surreal. The feeling of living in a simulation - wild and lazy at the same time - grows stronger every day. At least the one imagined by the Wachowski siblings for the “Matrix” saga was distopic, thrilling, frightening; in short, it made you feel something. Today, instead, we’re left with caricatured glitches, rips in the fabric of reality that promise “other” visions. They are almost always promptly betrayed by the content, as soon as you look inside: the packaging is there, but nothing else.

It can only be described as a grotesque-Matrix-style-system-error that three albums overlapping in intentions, ambitions, and musical grammar came out within days of each other: Dijon’s “Baby”, Nourished By Time’s “The Passionate Ones”, and Blood Orange’s much-awaited return with “Essex Honey”. Three albums attempting exactly the same thing. Musically, they explore a kind of pop that aspire to break rules, an R&B that rewrites its genre’s boundaries, a mosaic-like yet unified album form. In terms of imagery, all three seek to affirm Black manhood far from the macho stereotype, updated to contemporary fluidity and fragility - seemingly elevating those qualities as the only acceptable kind of sensitivity.

The problem is that none of the three truly succeeds in its more or less declared aims. We’re bombarded with so many promises - so loud and overwhelming, that everyone seem to hope they’ll be self-sufficient, making enough noise to confuse and daze the listener. Pitchfork fell for it completely. They gave “Baby” by Dijon a glowing 9, writing that we’re facing an album whose «surrealist, collagist approach to songwriting stretches the bounds of sound and feeling». Yet the most interesting thing about Dijon’s album (beyond the extreme use of explicit references: from Prince to Common, Michael Jackson, Bilal, Frank Ocean) is the production by Michael Gordon, a.k.a mk.gee.

The tracks arrangement really do explode into each other, with abrupt shifts of scenery and good ideas. But overall the most compelling thing is hearing mk.gee’s unmistakable songwriting DNA emerge and hold everything together. Take him away and the album ceases to make sense. His ability to write songs that glide like water, only apparently in a classic form, is the one thing saving an otherwise difficult listen - sometimes fun, sometimes infuriating. Music critic Joshua Minsoo Kim put it well on X, declaring himself «confused by people calling the Dijon album experimental. To me it’s like a modern Scritti Politti album in our post-Frank Ocean, Jai Paul, and Bon Iver age. Songs go down so easy, production isn’t shocking so much as thoughtfully arranged. They’re contemporary love songs.»

«Working restaurants by day, writing love songs by night», sings Marcus Brown aka Nourished By Time on “9 2 5”. Again, in the Baltimore native’s album we’re facing nothing more than a collection of love songs. The references are less futuristic and more vintage: an electro-pop straddling the ’80s and ’90s. Of the three records it’s surely the most accomplished one, with a clear identity and songs unashamed of being pop — even boasting potential generational hooks like “Max Potential.” There’s a pleasant and genuine working-class sensibility expressed in simple but powerful lyrics like «sell the hours of their lives to survive their lives» or «if we all strike now / the gravy train stop». Musically, though, we’re going absolutely nowhere — stuck with well-written songs we’ll forget two hours later, aside from the odd chorus.

Blood Orange’s “Essex Honey” is perhaps the hardest album to judge. It was awaited for six years, following a solid career that had begun to slide creatively after its initial bursts. In a sense it sits exactly between the other two albums: there’s a retromaniac drive but also a very confused hunger for the future. That confusion pervades the whole record. There are beautiful sounds but also sloppy structures, intriguing ideas developed halfway or abandoned for something that works not that well. “Essex Honey” is a complex album that ultimately succumbs to its ambition, yet still offers glimpses of beauty.

The point is that all three albums are enjoyable. They have sweet, beautiful, interesting moments. But they’re only that: moments. Inserted into a general chaos meant to be perceived as experimental and daring. This isn’t really the artists’ decision, but everything around them, proof of a hunger for novelty that will cling to anything. In short, the way these albums were presented and perceived says more about us than about them. There’s little to nothing truly experimental or daring here, and yet the media circus has largely pushed these three records as the new turning point in contemporary pop. We’re starving for emotions we are struggling to find and, most of all, really feel.

Maybe that’s why love (declined mostly into grief in Blood Orange’s case) is the thematic thread tying the albums together. The most classic and abstract of pop tropes, it too feels freeze-dried here. Across the three records it’s used in opposite ways that end up with the same result: sometimes as a tool of self-valorization, sometimes as an element of collective struggle, in a world that wants us to be individualistic. In both cases what really emerges is a profound, staggering sense of loneliness. An abstract idea of love that frustrates itself, either trapped in self-love or reaching out to a collective that doesn’t exist, circling back in vain.

This agitation and frenzy manifests itself in fragmented arrangements. Hence albums mostly composed like a scrolling session - broken arrangements, thirty seconds of something and then a sudden change of scene, before attention fades. At the same time it’s clear on every record that the drum sounds (and much else) are steeped in 1980s influences, with that specific long reverb that immediately wraps everything in nostalgia. We are present in a present we are not truly living, pulled back by sounds from the past. Yet, we have the arrogance to speak about the future.

In other words, we’re running in place. These three albums will be forgotten within months, but you can be sure they’ll all appear in the top ten of end-of-year lists. “Blonde” by Frank Ocean came out nearly ten years ago, and even Ocean himself hasn’t graced us with a follow-up. If even he chose not to compete with himself -realizing that that formula (experimental R&B, imaginative electronics, 3.0 sensitivity, hyper-curated lo-fi aesthetics, gender fluidity, themes of love in the digital age) had been perfected and crystallized in a flawless album - how is it possible others don’t understand the same?

A good producer and beatmaker is nothing more than an alchemist. They possess an intimate knowledge of the elements at their disposal and mix them at will, creating combinations unimaginable to ordinary human beings.

In this sense, Daniel Alan Maman is not just an alchemist but The Alchemist. His beats are intricate: profound sound postcards that wrap the listener in an imaginative, layered world. A world that perfectly matches rappers with a complex and creative flow — laidback, yet always sharp and alert.

There’s one element that recurs in The Alchemist’s best creations: guitar samples. The producer uses them as if they were the philosopher’s stone, a secret weapon that makes every beat immortal. I dug through the Californian artist’s vast discography to unearth ten of his best guitar-sample-based beats. Arranged in chronological order.

The Alchemist - Training Montage - Getting Stronger (2012)

A simply mind-blowing beat, cubist, prismatic. The guitars that enrich the whole piece come from two different songs by the same band: In Spe, an Estonian progressive rock band active since the late seventies. On the same album, “Russian Roulette”, the guitar work in the track “Flight Confirmation” featuring Danny Brown and Schoolboy Q is also remarkable.

Meyhem Lauren - Brand Name Marijuana (2012)

I couldn’t trace the origin of this sample, but it’s undoubtedly one of the most iconic. A typically seventies riff, a distorted guitar over which Meyhem Lauren raps in the oxymoronic opening: “Loud bass light treble, heavy metal, no guitar.” It sounds like a timeless hip-hop classic.

Action Bronson - The Symbol (2012)

One of the most iconic tracks from the already iconic collaboration between Action and The Alchemist is built on a sharp-edged sample from the cult band UFO. The track is “Flying”, a twenty-six-minute suite from the band’s second album “UFO 2: Flying” (1971). Here, The Alchemist dissects and rearranges various guitar phrases to construct a beat infused with electric stabs so powerful they sometimes overshadow Bronson’s own vocals.

The Alchemist - Terry (2017)

An instrumental made iconic by Action Bronson, based on an extensive use of the wonderful guitar sample from the 1973 track “Let Me In Your Life” by Indian-American artist Asha Puthli. Deconstructed, chopped, and stitched back together, the guitar drives the song’s dynamics — tension and release, light and shadow — like a boxer skillful in footwork. A small masterpiece of agility, creativity, and above all, musicality.

Schoolboy Q - W.Y.G.D.T.N.S. (2019)

Perhaps my favorite. The entire beat consists of nothing but minimal drums and this labyrinthine guitar phrase sampled from O’Donel Levy’s 1971 track “Love Story”. Of course, the greatness of the track comes from Schoolboy Q’s ability to navigate it in countless different ways, giving the whole piece dynamism — clinging to the guitar, trailing it, floating above it, ignoring it, imitating it.

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Something to Rap About (feat. Tyler, The Creator) (2020)

Perhaps the most iconic track from the Freddie Gibbs–Alchemist collaboration. The beautiful guitar sample that supports the entire song is taken from David T. Walker’s 1976 track “On Love” — also sampled by A Tribe Called Quest on “God Lives Through”. The original is a dreamy, wonderfully melancholic soul-jazz piece. Qualities that The Alchemist infuses into a beat of the same nature, over which Gibbs and Tyler deliver lyrics with radically different themes, creating an effect that is both uncanny and perfect.

Boldy James & The Alchemist - 3rd Person (2021)

For this track produced for the Griselda Records artist, The Alchemist dug into Brazil’s past, back to 1983, unearthing one of the country’s first prog bands — O Terço. The Alchemist seems to have an absolute preference for the epic guitar sounds of progressive rock, for those late-seventies/early-eighties phrases steeped in pathos, solemn melodies, and evocative atmospheres.

Domo Genesis - Prophecy (2023)

Another album entirely produced by The Alchemist, this time for the former Odd Future member: a true hidden gem. “Prophecy” is the opening track and begins with a heartbreaking guitar loop taken from “Festival” (1983), by yet another obscure Estonian band — Vitamiin. As always, the mood is melancholic, the flow intricate and creative. Interestingly, the same sample was also used by 2 Chainz on “Saturday Night”, a highly underrated track from the hugely successful album “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music” (2017).

Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, The Alchemist - Pete VS Andre (2023)

Griselda Records and The Alchemist: a match made in heaven. Gunn and Conway’s slurred, creative flows are simply perfect over the producer’s beats, often sharing the same qualities. Here we even find a drumless track, where the only elements interacting are the splendid, melancholic guitar sample — somewhere between blues, jazz, and soul — whose origin I couldn’t trace. No matter: it’s undoubtedly one of the most iconic uses of guitar by the Californian producer, a track to be experienced like a film, eyes open, following the intertwining of flows and instruments.

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - 1995 (2025)

Another incredible prog-rock sample, this time from the Spanish band Iceberg, with their 1979 track “Crisalide”. What stands out here is how the sample, instead of bearing the full weight of the track, becomes part of the overall arrangement, decisively enriching it.

I don’t want to hear nothing about mountains, lakes, rivers or long walks with overpriced and trendy gear. You’re not going to find yourself on a mountain path to nowhere. Press pause on the Instagram trends: summer is the sea and sea is the summer.

To my visceral love for the sea, add my love for themed music lists, and here we are: a list of thirteen albums inspired by or dedicated to the sea. From every era and every genre, but as fresh, fluid, deep, and serene as the waters themselves.

While you read and save all the goodies below you can also listen to this mix of sea-music I made for my on-off residency at Rhizome.

V.A. – Kouté Jazz

One of my all-time favorite albums. An outstanding compilation of Creole jazz from the French Antilles—from Guadeloupe to Martinique. American jazz blends with local folk genres equally full of swing. A special mention to the incredible melodies: they taste like rum sipped on a beach at sunset. The sea here wasn’t just an inspiration, the soil for the music —it was the very force that brought all these different music together, creating something truly beautiful.

Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer – Recordings from the Åland Islands

In 2017, Chiu and Honer traveled to the Åland Islands—an archipelago of around 6,500 islands in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. There, they recorded a magical album, fully immersed in the surreal atmosphere of the place, where field recordings and improvisations are woven into ethereal sound textures. As the liner notes say, “they were taken by the serene and strange quality of the place. The sun doesn’t set in the summer (and barely rises in the winter).” The ferries moving through the island network, according to Chiu, “cast a surreal horizontal movement through space and time, with islands shifting into and out of periphery, totally still and calm, yet always in motion.”

Cruel Santino – Subaru Boys

You may not know it, but Santino is one of the most influential contemporary artists of recent years. King of the Alté movement, the Nigerian powerhouse creates entire sonic worlds. Subaru Boys is a complex and fascinating concept—a waterworld inspired by the geography of Lagos. It’s not just an album, but also an NTS show, countless Twitch streams and more. At its core, music: afro pop, post rock, afrobeats, hip-hop. Think psychedelic A$AP Rocky hangs out with Burna Boy and a white kid from the American Midwest. Fluid like water.

Fennesz – Venice 20

A modern classic. The Austrian artist’s album turned twenty last year and remains a dense, evocative journey through the alleys, beaches, canals, and waves of Venice. Guitar and computer merge to create a sound between ambient and psychedelic, capturing a perfect sonic photograph of a unique city.

Dominique Guillot – L’univers de la mer

An album inspired by deep-sea exploration, oceanic creatures, and underwater kingdoms. A lost gem from 1978, recently brought back to light thanks to a reissue by Swiss label WRWTFWW Records. Prog rock, psychedelia, and space jazz—featuring a stunning cover by legendary artist Jacques Wyrs.

Ichiko Aoba – Luminescent Creatures

The latest album from the Japanese artist was inspired by creatures she encountered while diving near a remote island. In a way, her entire discography is inspired by aquatic worlds. Her music flows in and out of the listener with the same delicacy as water. The previous album ended with a two-minute recording of waves crashing on the shore—this new one takes us below the surface.

Péninsule Arabique Vol. 2 – Musique des Pêcheurs de Perles

For centuries—millennia, even—people in the Gulf have free-dived for pearls hidden in oysters on the sea floor. Fijiri is the vocal music tradition of pearl divers from the coastal Gulf states, especially Bahrain and Kuwait. It was grueling work, physically and mentally, with men spending months away from their families, exposed to harsh conditions. Music was a refuge—complex and evocative choral harmonies where a soloist would interact with a chorus and improvised percussion. Magical.

Bola Sete – Ocean

A solo guitar album in which the Brazilian artist infuses saudade and virtuosity. It feels as if it were recorded live, leaning out a window overlooking the ocean, fingers following the waves’ motion, capturing the sea’s mood and its sudden changes—from dark to light, from calm to stormy.

Colin Stetson – When We Were That What Wept for the Sea

Drone jazz at its finest. Haunting yet strangely comforting, like sailing unknown waters. The incredible American saxophonist composed a cinematic album that tells a story through music alone—one we must piece together through its textures and tones. Thankfully, there's plenty of music to cling to, along with evocative track titles that chart a true ocean voyage: through storms, serene skies, despair, and peace.

Turn On The Sunlight – Ocean Garden

Jesse Peterson and Carlos Niño surrounded by L.A.’s post-hippie experimental scene: Sachiko Kanenobu, Phil Ranelin, Laraaji, Dwight Trible, Cavana Lee, and Mia Doi Todd. An album of natural ambient, space jazz, and organic electronics that evokes ultra terrestrial serenity. Recorded at sunset in front of the ocean, at Zorthian Ranch—an iconic artist residency and countercultural hub in California since the 1940s, recently nearly destroyed by L.A.’s wildfires.

Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki, & Tatsuro Yamashita - Pacific

“This album makes me want to be a 67 year old retired man at a beach somewhere”, states a YouTube comment. I think it sums up perfectly the serene vibe of this cult record. Japan jazz, city pop, that late Seventies vibe that already looks at the Eighties. Just a perfect evocative record to a summer by the sea lost in time.

Luaka Bop – Adventures in Afropea 3: Telling Stories to the Sea

Another compilation—this time curated by the label founded by David Byrne. A journey through Portuguese-speaking Africa, and specifically the island of Cape Verde: a colonial history in which music and the sea played key roles. Relief and nightmares, storms and solace—blending Afro-Cuban rhythms, emotional local folk, and irresistible funk.

Big Hands – Thauma

I’ve already discussed “Thauma” deeply with its author, here. An unclassifiable record born from dreams during the stormy crossings of the Mediterranean Sea. It echoes the sea’s magical and tempestuous rhythm, enveloping the listener in an enchanting musical flow.