Created in her mind on balmy evenings on a sunny balcony in Paris, German vocalist LAURA is proud to present her sophomore album, ‘Sunset Balcony’, set to release on May 5th on GLM Records.

Pre order here

Well known within the jazz scene of Stuttgart which she calls home, Laura has already gathered a reputation for herself by attracting the attention of the likes of Quincy Jones, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Jacob Collier. Taken aback by her musicality, her voice, and her charisma, Michael Jackson’s revered producer felt moved to say, “This young woman doesn’t need to worry about her career, she is amazing and I’m sure we will be hearing more from her in the future”.

Inspired by her fourth floor Parisian apartment, Laura views her balcony as a nexus of safety and freedom, as for her it provides the feeling of being at home whilst being exposed to the outside world. With strong undercurrents of Norah Jones-esque contentment and positivity, the record embraces a number of varied styles and textures with confidence and joy.

From the country/pop-tinged title track, to the hip-hop influenced ‘Poke Bowl’, blues/funk energy of ‘Johnny the Fly’ and folky mood of ‘Bartender’, the 14 tracks are united by Laura’s universally relatable storytelling and captivating melodies.

Whilst the core ensemble is a quartet of close friends and long term collaborators (the same team responsible for Laura’s 2021 release ‘Quiet Land’), the album sees welcome additions from some of Germany’s leading instrumentalists including guitar, percussion, horns and strings. Lush orchestral arrangements, comforting soul guitar parts, and passages of playful improvisations from trumpeter Jakob Bänsch and baritone saxophonist Eric Séva open up new textural contexts to showcase the diverse array of styles up Laura’s sleeve.

‘Sunset Balcony’ is an album whose music moves toward the future, but along the way nostalgically glances back over its shoulder, into the real and emotional contradictions between melancholy and optimism that we all have to live with now more than ever.

Laura| Vocals Jens Loh | Bass William Lecompte | Piano, fender rhodes Eckhard Stromer | Drums        

Artist website

Jazz Artist Fiona Ross Captures the Bustle, Profundity and Glamour of the Everyday on New Album Thoughts, Conversations, and To Do Lists

Jazz singer-songwriter Fiona Ross undertakes the difficulty of capturing the everyday – via both its birds-eye view and its sharp, minute detail – on her new album Thoughts, Conversations and To Do Lists – available on April 28th. 

She manages to crystallize the racing interior monologue, the standstill of the post-breakup blues, the gentle flow of a thirst for knowledge. She also deftly paints the party atmosphere, the easy camaraderie between friends, and the steadfast desire for truth.

The album’s opener, “When Will You Leave My Mind,” is a paradoxical song in the sense that it’s sonically full of movement – it has the pace of a cha-cha, a chugging train, a bustling city – while the lyrics capture perfectly the state of stuckness and standstill after a breakup. Replete with a catchy Latin guitar groove, the track makes the internal turmoil palpable with Ross’ syncopated singing, her words moving deftly in and out of the sensual instrumentation as she inquires, “When will you leave my mind/ You’ve spent too long in my mind/ You don’t belong in my mind.” The overall effect, however, is sassiness and steadfastness rather than wilted defeat, and the listener gets the sense that she’s going to solve this – if not right now, then quite soon.

Thoughts, Conversations and To Do Lists moves from strutting (“I Want To Know More”) to pensive and meandering (like the sax-studded “The Small Things”) to the wild, raucous and adventurous (“When You Walked In The Room”). Ross’ voice soars, strides, and shimmies through “A Single Source of Truth,” about looking for straightforwardness and low-drama in a world of melodrama and fake news. 

Meanwhile, Trumpet Man” is sexy and undulating, an ode to a sort of renaissance man, with (of course) sublime trumpet accents in all the right places. “The Don’t Stop Just Breathe Ragtime” features wildly fun, almost cartoonish instrumentation with a sense of deep playfulness. And the glittering piano, danceable beats, and groovy guitar on the instrumental “#ThursdayThoughts” at the album’s conclusion replicate a mind racing with ideas and boundless energy. 

Written, arranged and produced by Ross, the 14-track album is a compendium of several themes reflecting Ross’ day-to-day life. While some songs are busy, with lots going on from every angle, others are more interior and reflective, mirroring Ross’ headspace.  

“Someone asked me what my new album was about and I explained that it’s just really some of my thoughts, some conversations I’ve had, and my To-Do lists,” Ross recalls. “That kind of stuck, so decided to call it exactly that – Thoughts, Conversations and To Do Lists.” 

The liner notes on her last two albums were written by Maxine Gordon and Celine Peterson and for this album Fiona has the award winning journalist and author of She Raised Her Voice!: 50 Black Women Who Sang Their Way Into Music History Jordannah Elizabeth who says  ‘Thoughts, Conversations and To Do Lists’ is an incredible album in 2023 that defines Ross’ gifts as a well-honed, recognizable style. As the future draws post-modern life toward and within it, Ross will be heard in a new way; as women in jazz become notable for their compositions and arrangements, as well as her voice. Beyond gender, as a musician and songwriter, the album is a complete culmination of a myriad of viewpoints, thoughtful self-reflection, and collaborative music as she brings together a band that gels and has balanced chemistry. It’s been my honor to write these liner notes as a part of a lineage of women’

Written, arranged and produced by Fiona Ross

Vocals and Piano: Fiona Ross

Guitar: Gibbi BettiniBass: Derek DaleyDrums: Marley DrummondSaxophones and Flute: Loren Hignell

Trumpets: Dave BoaBacking vocals: Ashaine WhitePercussion: Warren Woodcraft

Guest appearance on ‘Push Me Around in a Pushchair’: Nancy Richardson

Recorded at Studio XYZ by Gibbi Bettini. Mixed at Highfield Studio by Elliot Richardson and Warren Woodcraft

Mastered by Nick Watson at Fluid Mastering

Front Cover photo by Monika S Jakubowska taken at Jazz Cafe Posk, London.

Artwork by Chris CunninghamPhotos by Ron Milsom and Tatiana Gorilovsky

Liner notes by Jordannah Elizabeth

Thoughts, Conversations and To Do Lists will be available on April 28th and can be pre ordered here

The mood is jazz. The icon is Rickie Lee Jones. The voice just keeps getting better. Rickie Lee Jones’ latest album Pieces of Treasure (BMG Modern) is a reunion with her lifelong friend, legendary producer Russ Titelman, who co-produced Jones’ star-making albums, her 1980 debut Rickie Lee Jones and the seminal Pirates. Available everywhere April 28, on vinyl or streaming, experience the sensual, elegant, groundbreaking spirit that is always Rickie Lee.

Great jazz never imitates what has already been done. Throughout her career, the Grammy-winning singer songwriter has interpreted an extraordinarily wide range of songs, often on the same album (David Bowie publicly praised her take on “Rebel Rebel”). She has recorded celebrated jazz-leaning albums including Girl at Her Volcano and Pop Pop, but until now, she had never devoted an entire album to the American Songbook.

“This album is as much about being human, the view of surviving—which means aging, and loving relentlessly— as it is about anything,” says Jones, now 68 with an acclaimed memoir, Last Chance Texaco. “We love ‘til the day we die, love our lives, our families, and finally ourselves.”

Recorded over five days at Sear Sound in New York City, backed by the quartet of Rob Mounsey on piano, guitarist Russell Malone, bassist David Wong and drummer Mark McLean, Pieces of Treasure— the title a callback to Pirates —is elegantly simple, a deeply emotive set pulled from Jones’ own life and experience. “This is an album Russ masterfully picked players who are exceptional musicians, who listen and respond,” says Jones. “And that’s partly why this sparse thing sounds so totally complete, because everyone responds to each other and builds this perfect room.”

 Hear the first single and opening song “Just in Time” (written by Jule Styne, Betty Comden, Adolph Green), featuring Mike Mainieri on vibraphone. “I am flirting with the microphone, sexy in a kind of “grown-ups in the 1960s” way, like Dean Martin might have been with his sweetheart,” says Jones. “I try to keep tape running every time I am behind the microphone, because you never know? I just slipped in there and started to sing. So, no one is thinking too much. And that’s the way to sneak up on a performance.”

On April 6, 7 and 8, Rickie Lee Jones will be playing special preview shows at Birdland in New York City, backed by Russell Malone, Rob Mounsey, Mark McClean and Paul Nowinski.

“This American Songbook recording shows Rickie's artistry in full bloom,” says Titelman. “Her voice has always sounded a bit younger than it ought to (that may be a function of her ability to inhabit the character who is singing the song so masterfully that you believe every word) but on this recording the aging voice sounds even better to me than the youthful one. There's a resonance and warmth in her lower register that wasn't there before. I adore the young Rickie Lee but I love even more the Old Dame.”

Pieces of Treasure

Just in Time (Jule Styne, Betty Comden, Adolph Green)

There Will Never Be Another You (Harry Warren, Mack Gordon) Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez)

One for My Baby (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer)

They Can’t Take That Away from Me (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) All the Way (Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn)

Here’s That Rainy Day (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke) September Song (Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson)

On the Sunny Side of the Street (Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields) It’s All in the Game (Charles G. Dawes, Carl Sigman)

Rickie Lee Jones website

Of What Remains is Montreal baritone saxophonist and bassoonist Melissa Pipe’s first release as a leader. It explores ideas around temporality: the shifting of time, form and being. The pieces form a whole, joining together fragmentation, symbiosis, distillation, evaporation, and transience, while looking at what is left behind, or what remains.

“The sextet's instrumentation allows me to write in both traditional jazz ensemble configuration (trumpet and saxes with the rhythm section) and in a “chamber jazz” format,” says Pipe about choosing the unique instrumentation and writing for her sextet. “The additional colour, timbre and orchestration possibilities of the bassoon and the bass clarinet are particularly effective in infusing elements of classical and folkloric music into the pieces”.

Her compositions here range from moody, atmospheric pieces to more traditional styles like a minor blues, but most tend to be on the darker, introspective side. “I write what I hear. Sometimes it starts with a bass line, a progression. Sometimes it’s a melody. The pieces on this album use a variety of jazz and classical compositional devices and techniques, but beyond the theoretical framework that I use to build its structures, harmonies, textures, etc. the most important thing for me is that it has to have soul. It has to be something my ear wants to hear. At times that can be something more modern, and at others something steeped in the jazz tradition: to me it goes beyond genres, it’s all about the soul of the thing.”

In addition to leading her own group, Pipe also performs regularly with jazz, hip hop, indie, and classical ensembles as a freelancer. She also had the honour of interviewing Yusef Lateef, whose playing and compositional style have greatly influenced her, for an article about his double reed playing which was published in The Double Reed, as well as on Lateef’s website. In 2014, she was invited to perform her arrangements of Charles Mingus pieces for bassoon quartet at the Jazz Standard in NYC alongside Michael Rabinowitz, Paul Hanson and Mark Ortwein, as part of the International Double Reed Society conference.

Melissa Pipe: baritone sax, bassoon

Lex French: trumpet

Philippe Côté: tenor sax, bass clarinet

Geoff Lapp: piano

Solon McDade: bass

Mili Hong, drums

w/ Michael Sundell, contrabassoon select tracks

Produced by: Philippe Côté and Melissa Pipe

Recorded and mixed by: Paul Johnston

Mastered by: Guy Hébert

Released April 2023 on ODD SOUND

Melissa Pipe Website

Based in Basel with Japanese-Polish roots, acclaimed Swiss singer, composer and producer Yumi Ito grew up immersed in three different cultures. Her latest offering, Ysla, takes its name from the Old Portuguese for "island" and invites the listener on a journey across both a metaphorical ocean and a stylistic vista which takes in jazz, art-pop and neo-classical music.

Mixing an intricate jazz technique with hints of great singer-songwriters including Bjork and Joni Mitchell, ‘Ysla’ deals with the themes of loneliness & separation, disaster and rebirth, taking inspiration from nature, psychology, and sociology, as well as current contemporary history.

The multidimensional perspective on identity, community and travelling across borders that her upbringing afforded plays a large role in her work. “I began to envision a conception of identity that is more open and inclusive than any nationality or other label. I set out to fashion my own, inner world – to find a way to exist and communicate with others in such a way that transcended the particulars of any one of these cultures.

The seven original compositions are closely connected to Yumi Ito's personhood and tell of her path of reflection and self-discovery. In this process, Ito has also developed her vocal improvisation into a "universal" language that can be understood anywhere.  

“In recent years, I’ve worked on new music in Iceland, Galicia (Cies) and Greece (Milos), which - like my father's country of origin, Japan - are all islands. Travelling there has generated distance and time to get to know myself better.”

Seamlessly bridging the gap between student at Switzerland’s prestigious Jazz Campus where she was part of the Focus Year Band, and vocal professor at one of the country’s leading music schools, Yumi has already worked with a host of modern greats (Mark Turner, Al Jarreau, Becca Stevens) and in constellations from solo through to full orchestra.

For this trip, she retains long-time colleagues (and key features of the Yumi Ito Orchestra) in Kuba Dworak (double bass) and Iago Fernández (drums), alongside Chris Hyson (synths) and Szymon Mika (guitar). Here, for the first time, she recorded all the piano parts herself, with the complex keyboard patterns that ring out under layers of vocals, conjuring an other-worldly feel.

Effortlessly, the group manoeuvres through a veritable genre ocean of ambient sounds, mystical grooves, and soulful songs. The sound of the core trio is extended into an immersive world of delicately plucked guitars, rich synth timbres, cello layers and modern production with a pop sensibility.

With increasingly mature musicianship, and a deep sense of storytelling in the spotlight, Ito’s music is honest and full of heart; it possesses the capacity to connect with anyone who will listen. “I hope my music allows people to look at the familiar from a distance: to grant them access to a space where they might be open to reflection and reinvention.”

Yumi Ito | Vocals, Piano, Composition, Lyrics Kuba Dworak| Double Bass

Iago Fernández| Drums                                                                     

Artist website

Lakiko is a cello that strokes, scratches, repeats itself and disappears. Lakiko is also a voice, singing about a nomadic existence, Bosnian nightmares, an archaic past and a dystopian future

What To Do, How To Live?is Lakiko’s debut album and issung almost entirely in Bosnian using a vocal technique from the Sevdalinka tradition. A piece of experimental performance, the artistic vision was drawn out of a period of deep contemplation, looking backwards, reflecting on the modern Balkan experience, her growing up in Sarajevo, and the scars and hardships that city and people have had to endure and thinking about how their future will unfold. The accompanying short film, Lakiko – A Hybrid Idea, directed by German director Manfred Borsch was shot in various locations in and around Sarajevo and has won awards including Best Director at Stockholm City Film 2022 and will be publicly released in March 2023.

Now residing in Lucerne, Switzerland and having trained as a classical cellist in Bremen and the University of Arts in Bern, Lakiko AKA Lana Kostić created her sonic world with the assistance of the neurology department in Biel. Connected to an EEG machine, the cellist experimented with exercising her free will using instruments, simultaneously using her brain waves as a score. The resulting material led to a series of live shows across Europe and it re-framed her musical outlook with a shower of new influences and sounds shaping her musical being. Bosnian folk, off-kilter classical, endless glissandi loops, eerie and fidgeting electronics and the cello, again and again, plucked, scratched, silent and angry.

All Lakiko’s songs are steeped in political sentiment “but in my very non-political way” with topics about the chances, or lack of, of changing social class (Tobogan), gender equality (The Woman Is Stronger Than the Man in Me), and our tendency as society to repeat the same things over and over again (Junaci). For Lakiko, art and politics are forever present and entwined.“Music is the biggest part of my life. Conversely, my life is the biggest part of my music” she explains*.* As anartist, as a woman and as of very recently, as a mother, Lakiko’s purpose is one of many questions she constantly ponders. The title of the album, What To Do, How To Live? came about years before, overhearing another musician joking around. But for Lakiko, this question repeats over and over and has become a permanent narrative.

Lana’s first introduction to the cello was a rather curious one that took place when she was only 4 years old. “I was riding with my mother in the elevator and humming something, and the concertmaster of the Zagreb Philharmonic at the time, who was also in the elevator, told me that I had good hearing and huge hands and  that I had to play the cello," she says. That meeting in a lift changed her life forever.

As a classical cellist Lana performs as a soloist, with orchestras and in various chamber music ensembles like Zürcher Oper, Theater Bern and Theater Bremen. She collaborated in various interdisciplinary projects such as in the film Dvorak who? (directed by Jan Harlan - executive producer of Stanley Kubrick), in contemporary theatre (Biennale Munich) and with dance groups  (Lucerne Kunsthalle, Chollerhalle Zug).  When watching Lakiko perform on a stage or on screen, it’s sometimes difficult to see the separation between music and theatre, as she is constantly moving, gesticulating, and dramatising. Yet her presence, and her emotion is all-powerful, introverted but absolutely real.

The dark and introspective combination of acoustic cello energised by a range of bewildering effects with mystical other-worldly singing and vocalisations,  is arresting and powerful. All the more so, with her hard-hitting subject matter which she says could only have been sung in her mother tongue of Bosnian, as there are no other words to express these thoughts.

 "My 'loudest' feeling is that I can't change anything, and I don't want to accept those rules of the game. After all, I left Sarajevo. That's why I always have to point out that I have no right to criticise or say anything. But even though I left Sarajevo and BiH, it didn't leave me, so I'm still dealing with it through music," concludes Kostić.

Artist website