Jazz /
Non Basta
Cucoma Combo are back with their impetuous and political sound, an urgent need to communicate in order to awaken consciences and react to the sick immobility of our times. Captain Marco Zanotti (Classica Orchestra Afrobeat/Lolo) once again gathers his pirate crew and sets sail for new Atlantic and Caribbean adventures. From Cape Verde to Salvador de Bahia, from Haiti to Colombia, then back to Tanzania and Zimbabwe. An inspired and furious attitude incorporates disparate rhythms, languages, and s…
The Ark
Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express. With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running t…
Jakuta's Dance
*50 copies limited edition* The boundary-defying percussion ensemble Onilu debuts on 577 Records with a work of striking scope, depth, and creative fire: Jakutá’s Dance. The group delivers a sonic vision that is at once elemental and exploratory—rooted in tradition yet unbound by it. Founding members Kevin Diehl and Joe Chambers are joined by Craig McIver and Daniel Villarreal, forming a dynamic quartet whose collective experience spans generations and geographies. Together, they draw from an ex…
Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings
Trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's album Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings is due June 12, 2026, on Nonesuch Records. The album features four new compositions by each musician as well as one collaboration. The album track “Soundcheck“ is available today and can be heard below; you can pre-order the album here. The duo, long admirers of each other’s musicianship, met at Halvorson’s Brooklyn apartment and began playing together periodically, going back as fa…
Non Sonett
*250 copies limited edition* Aspen is very proud to introduce ‘Non Sonett’ by the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble.
This ensemble is a pioneering Norwegian chamber group whose work on ECM and Hubro has redefined the boundaries between jazz, contemporary composition and folk music.
Across seven albums, the ensemble has developed a highly distinctive language built on restraint, timbral nuance and collective interplay, placing it among the most influential European ensembles of the 21st century. Brin…
Niebla
New York City-based, Puerto Rican-born guitarist, composer, and visual artist Gabriel Vicéns releases his fifth studio album, Niebla, a boundary-defying work that merges the vibrant rhythms of Afro-Puerto Rican folklore with the harmonic richness of modern jazz and the fearless spirit of avant-garde experimentation.
Niebla (which translates to “fog”) is a sonic journey through the cultural and emotional depths of identity, tradition, and innovation. Rooted in the rhythms of bomba and plena, the …
A Silence Opens
"Death is a lack with weight. At the moment that you realize that someone you love is irrecoverably gone, a small tear in your life opens up. As days go by, the sliver of grief grows, becoming a rift, a gap, a gulley, a canyon. At the point that you feel lost in the immensity of space where that person used to be, the expansion stops; the hole—the vast and airy part of your life that used to be occupied by that person—becomes solid. Maybe it decreases in size, but more likely, your memories grow…
Cartographies of Flight: Lines Set Afloat Towards Hope
"Dear Listener, this recording starts with a sound that has energized me over many years: the 'Dark Woods' of the clarinet, bassoon, cello and bass; the 'Bright Sparks' of the alto and trumpet; the wood and metal of the percussion bringing it all together. The album also contains many of my multitudes: settings of and improvisations with poetic text (here read by their author, Erica Hunt), the combination and contrasting of compositions with improvisations, and works both open and set; then the …
Tähtisilmä
Hot Heros once again bring a raw jazz grit to the heart of Finnish folk. Their latest LP, Tähtisilmä, explores the compositions of the master fiddler Konsta Jylhä through a modern, improvisational lens. Deepened by the rich, mournful tones of cellist Juho Kanervo, the group reimagines these beloved songs alongside a new original composition by bassist Ville Rauhala. Tähtisilmä is a visceral blend of jazz improvisation and the timeless "pelimanni" spirit, capturing the melancholy beauty of Finnis…
Quartet
"Composition and its performance can have an organic relationship, a balance between written and the improvised. Muriel Grossmann’s wide compositional and performing talents are clearly reflected in four-voice pieces such as Diversity and Quintessence, suite-like compositions such as Flügel and Echo, as well as brisk, energetic works like Andrew. The quartet composed of Radomir Milojkovic on guitar, David Marroquin on upright bass, and Marko Jelaca on drums, has become a sound lab — a group wher…
Happy Today
Happy Today, the third album from guitarist/bandleader Jeff Parker’s long-running ETA IVtet, was recorded live at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on August 20, 2025. This fresh entry into the IVtet’s catalog captures Parker and the band – including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson – on record outside of the now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA for the first time. The performance also captures a distinctly joyful night of togetherness set against the back…
Béke
**3rd pressing with letterpressed insert** “Peace is not the word to play” rapped Large Professor on Main Source’s 1991 debut album. His plea to stop abusing the word “peace” simply for rhetoric flair sounds just as valid in today’s genocidal world as it did in the streets of New York over 30 years ago. For Oiro Pena to name this album Béke, meaning peace in Hungarian – or white people in French Caribbean creole – it seems like they finally have something to say. With this group/concept/project …
Thoughts
"When Freysteinn Gíslason sent me the raw recordings from Sundlaugin in Mosfellsbær, I heard immediately what he and his ensemble had captured: a group of musicians operating at the outer edges of what jazz can contain. My job wasn't to shape these performances in the traditional sense—they were already fully realized—but to bring clarity and force to a vision that refused easy categorization.
Thoughts is an album that exists in extremes. Not the extremes of volume or aggression alone, but of em…
Themes for Dreams
Themes For Dreams marks another left turn, finding Chicago-born and based musician, composer, and producer Will Miller at his most meditative, patient, and intentional. Across 13 gorgeous and strikingly cohesive tracks, the album eschews drums in favor of immersive melodies that float, dissipate, and linger. It's an album meant for rest, with arrangements so welcomely enveloping they feel like a warm blanket. While it's Miller's sparsest record yet, it still keeps his wildly collaborative ethos,…
Paddles
Uphill Game is an acoustic contemporary jazz quartet based in Bristol, UK, led by double-bassist & composer Riaan Vosloo. Uphill Game play open, dynamic, driving, delicate, exploratory, groove and melody focused music, inspired by the likes of the William Parker Quartet but with its own distinctive collective voice. Currently one of the UK's best-kept jazz secrets, the band is delighted to release its first album this spring, recorded live in the sumptuous acoustic of St George's Bristol.
Riaan …
Dolce Vita
Louis Matute unveils Dolce Vita, a bold and vibrant album. Recorded at the legendary La Frette Studio, this record blends Honduran heritage with Brazilian influences, merging jazz, groove, Caribbean rock and vintage textures into a poetic and deeply committed work. Having gained recognition at prestigious festivals, Matute collaborates here with remarkable artists such as Joyce Moreno, Dora Morelenbaum, Gabi Hartmann and Rico TK. In March 2025, Louis set up camp at La Frette, a rock-tinged, vint…
Four String Quartets
Alvin Singleton’s (b. 1940) approach to music-making has all along been involved in an interplay with listeners and their psychology. While this does not mean he has been centered on simply pleasing his audiences, his work seems to constantly draw his audience into confronting challenges of listening, and they tend to end up pleased. Therefore, with so many of his pieces, they might be extremely complex and masterfully crafted, but seldom do you feel he presents the listener with something they …
The Call
On The Call, Bellbird turn their namesake’s piercing cry into a manifesto: an explosive yet intimate quartet music where twin saxes, rhythm‑led structures and “ugly” beauty carry climate grief and solidarity into a single, ringing shout.
nen
Lau Nau (Laura Naukkarinen), Linda Fredriksson and Matti Bye enter the We Jazz Records realm as Kiri Ra! with their new album nen (out 22 May 2026). Kiri Ra! is a trio that creates their sound slowly, in a process of improvisation and discovery. Filtered through the musicians' long-standing friendship and collaboration, Kiri Ra!'s music is a testament to the joy of creation and invention. Their sound together draws from each of the the artists' work before, while creating new world of sound. The…
Orbital
The Outskirts came together as a working band during bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s three-year stint as a Chicagoan from 2005-2008. They played regularly at all of the working venues for improvised music in Chicago at that time, including The Hungry Brain, The Velvet Lounge, The Hideout, and Elastic. They even made a live recording in April 2009 that they were eager to release. But unfortunately, the multi-track audio files were lost in a hard drive mishap, leaving only a barely usable rough m…