After more than ten years of silence from this particular configuration, Shadows marks the return of Magnus Carlson & The Moon Ray Quintet on Helsinki’s We Jazz label, and it sounds like a group picking up a conversation left mid-sentence. The Swedish singer - long known as the vocalist of Weeping Willows and for his solo soul records - leans fully into his jazz persona here, fronting a tight, acoustic quintet that favours after-hours atmosphere over virtuoso display. Across eight tracks, they move through a carefully chosen set of songs that orbit themes of solitude, uncertainty and nocturnal introspection, turning each one into a small, cinematic scene.
The repertoire is a blend of originals and deeply recontextualised covers. Opener “Milk and Honey” sets the tone with a gently loping groove and warm horn voicings, while “Who Knows” and “Where Are We Now?” feel like late-night dialogues with doubt, Carlson phrasing behind the beat as if reluctant to let each line go. The record’s title and emotional centre of gravity are explicitly acknowledged in “Me and My Shadow,” treated less as show-tune standard than as a quietly haunted self-portrait. “Black Night” and “Mystery of Love” tilt the mood darker and more sensual, their harmonies stretching toward soul and noir soundtrack territory without ever leaving the small-club frame. The closing pair, a hushed take on Scott Walker’s “It’s Raining Today” and Jim Pepper’s cult standard “Wichi Tai To,” pull the album outward into psych-tinged orchestral pop and Native American–rooted modal chant, underlining the band’s reach beyond straight jazz.
What gives Shadows its coherence is the way The Moon Ray Quintet shade everything toward the same half-light. Arrangements are economical but not minimal: brushes and ride cymbal, close-knit horns, piano and bass that suggest more than they spell out, leaving plenty of room for Carlson’s grainy, slightly bruised baritone. The group play with an easy, lived-in swing that comes from history rather than rehearsal; their earlier work was steeped in lounge and exotica references, but here the palette is drier, more Nordic, even as it nods toward American songbook and spiritual jazz. The We Jazz production aesthetic - warm, detailed, with a tangible sense of space around the instruments - reinforces the feeling that this is music made for real rooms rather than algorithmic playlists.
As a We Jazz release, Shadows also plugs Carlson and The Moon Ray Quintet into a wider ecosystem of contemporary European jazz that values song form as much as improvisation. The album’s relatively compact length and tight focus make it feel like a complete, twilight narrative rather than a loose session; you move from first drink to last train almost without noticing the transitions. Listened to front-to-back, it reads as a meditation on how to age into your influences without ossifying them: 60s Scott Walker, 70s spiritual jazz, small-combo crooning and modern Nordic lyricism all present, all subtly rewired. For longtime followers, it’s a welcome continuation; for new listeners, Shadows is an entry point into a corner of the jazz world where the lights are low, the tempo unhurried, and every note is placed with conversational care.
