April Records proudly presents the new album from Danish trombonist and composer Lis Wessberg. Her most personal album to date, In The Wake of Blue is a song-driven work exploring transience, love, and transformation. Expanding her writing while remaining rooted in her distinctive instrumental voice, Wessberg creates an intimate musical landscape where lyric, melody, and texture carry equal weight.

In The Wake of Blue is set for release on April 17th, 2026 via April Records.

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Wessberg has established herself as a leading voice on the European jazz scene through her band Yellow Map and a series of acclaimed releases on April Records. Her previous album, Twain Walking (2024), marked her first step into English-language songwriting and earned a Danish Music Award nomination in 2025 for the track Behind the Walls. In The Wake of Blue develops this direction further. The album draws on images from nature - sea, tides, clouds, mist, and birds - used as emotional anchors rather than abstractions. These elements frame songs that move from uncertainty and loss toward openness, connection, and renewal. The title reflects this arc: “blue” as melancholy, depth, and memory, and what emerges in its wake.

Vocalist Veronika Rud is central to the album’s sound, bringing vulnerability and clarity to the songs. Rather than a traditional singer-led project, the music unfolds as a dialogue between voice and trombone, with Wessberg’s warm, airy tone mirroring and extending each song’s emotional core. At times the two move in close unison; elsewhere, they diverge and reconnect. The core ensemble - Steen Rasmussen (piano and keys), Lennart Ginman (bass), and Jeppe Gram (drums) - provides a responsive, understated foundation, while string quartet Live Strings appear on two tracks, expanding the ensemble’s depth and resonance. In The Wake of Blue offers a quietly assured statement from an artist continuing to refine a voice that speaks as clearly through brass as it does through words.

All Compositions and Arrangements by Lis Wessberg Published by April Publishing ApS

The first thing that comes to mind is a soundtrack to someone riding through the dunes on a beach at night, somewhere in Denmark. Or the feeling of being at the circus, marveling at all the magical things happening in the ring. Swaying above the clouds, light as a feather. Warm, friendly skies everywhere you look. Liquid sounds all over. Lis Wessberg’s trombone caresses your ears smoothly, but there is always a hot temper waiting to get out of the cage. The music takes you to a dreamy landscape filled with poetry and love – both in words and music. Veronika Rud delivers the very emotion of every song, and Lis says the exact same thing, but through her trombone.

We all long for a life filled with love and devotion. Veronika not only delivers the meaning of each song. She is the song, with Lis embracing every mood with her airy trombone. It feels like floating on air, letting us float along. Or like wandering through a mystical landscape, maybe a walk on a beach in the middle of a warm summer night. The waves slowly move us to sleep. Or like two birds in free flight, the voices of Lis and Veronika in perfect synchronization until Veronika takes a detour, letting her voice speak freely until Lis takes over with her airy voice – the trombone. The ending is like two lovebirds landing on a wire. Long live love. Long live music. Nils Landgren,Fellow musician and friend

Lis Wessberg website click here

Thank you to Jazz Fuel for sharing with us