Wellington-based saxophonist and composer Jake Baxendale brings together a remarkable collective of Aotearoa’s leading jazz and contemporary musicians for Waypeople, a luminous new album inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s English-language version of the Tao Te Ching. Drawing from jazz, Chinese classical music and improvisation, the project fuses lyrical storytelling with meditative textures and powerful ensemble interplay.

Bengali-Australian ensemble, The Three Seas return with their most expansive and spiritually charged work to date. ‘Antaḥkaraṇa’ is a  luminous meeting of Baul mysticism, Himalayan folk, rock and dub, recorded at Peter Gabriel’s legendary Real World Studios in the UK.

Recorded in a single day in December 2023, Redleaf is pin point-a space created here by each instrumental voice, each track of Redleaf is exquisite in its clarity of gesture, its own sonic terrain of mood and moment.

The Australian-Japanese trio Polyglot return with Before Words, a compelling new album that deepens their exploration of cross-cultural exchange. Formed in 2019 by Steve Barry (piano, organ, AUS/NZL), Ko Omura (drums, tabla, JPN) and Kosuke Ochiai (bass, morin khuur, JPN), the group brings contemporary jazz improvisation into dialogue with folk art and traditional performance practices from India, Mongolia and Japan. Recorded across two sessions at Tokyo’s Studio Dede in 2023 and 2024, Before Words captures the trio’s rare creative rapport and the breadth of their cultural and sonic research.

Meatshell’s third album The Elevator Child is full of contradiction. And perhaps that was always going to be the case. The duo’s namesake is itself pluralist in nature - at once soft and hard, full and voidal, exposed and shielded. The fluidity that is anchored in the dual nature of their project allows Saragossi and Svoboda to push and pull as they see fit across concept, process and form.

Distant Birds is the hypnotic new collaboration between Chris Abrahams (The Necks) and Dave Symes (Boy & Bear). A project born from deep musical trust and mutual curiosity, VOL. 01 & 02 traverses twilight soundscapes of pulsing grooves, moody atmospheres and extended improvisational forms. Channeling 70s Afrobeat, soul, and dub-reggae influences, the music is raw yet intricately textured-Moog synths, Fender Rhodes and Hammond organs swirl over infectious bass lines, with layers of saxophone and trumpet doubling Abraham’s extended right hand extemporisations, and Evan Manell’s subtly shifting drum patterns. The result is a world of syncopated hooks and rhythmic interplay, designed as much for the dancefloor as for immersive, headphone listening. Recorded live in single takes, the album captures the spontaneity and fluid energy of the trio in full flight.

The worlds of jazz, cinema, and video-game storytelling collide in Freyja Garbett’s extraordinary new album Sowden House. Originating from a collaboration with Brendan McNamara - founder of Team Bondi and writer/director of the acclaimed video game L.A. Noire - Sowden House began as the score for an immersive VR game set within Los Angeles’s infamous architectural landmark of the same name. The house, designed by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) in a dramatic Mayan-Revival style, once belonged to the mysterious Dr George Hodel, long rumoured to be linked to the Black Dahlia murder. Garbett’s music, conceived for this imagined world of shadow, memory, and intrigue, has now emerged as a cinematic, stand-alone album: a sonic journey through mood, atmosphere, and the blurred line between reality and imagination.