Peter Knight & TL;DR - Phosphenes

Released 6 November 2026, via CD and digital

Peter Knight - trumpet, electronics, live signal processing, synthesisers
Helen Svoboda - bass, voice, electronics
Theo Carbo - guitar, electronics, autoharp
Quinn Knight - drums

TL;DR is one of the most distinctive groups to emerge from the Australian jazz scene in recent years. Their influences, including Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, Laurie Anderson and The Necks, are refracted into propulsive forms that are, in equal measure, accessible and surprising.

Led by established composer and trumpeter Peter Knight (formerly Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra), the group also features three of the most compelling next generation musicians in the country, Helen Svoboda (bass/voice), Theo Carbo (guitar) and Quinn Knight (drums). Their debut on Earshift Music earned a 2025 ARIA nomination and a place in the NYC Jazz Record’s Top Ten. Phosphenes is their second album.

Phosphenes takes its name from the shapes and colours you see when you close your eyes, the perception of light stimulated by something other than light. This is non-narrative music, patient and spacious, that works through overlapping repetition and slowly evolving melody and that allows the listener to focus on the internal. With an emphasis on overlapping rhythms this music also comes from nature drawing inspiration from the way sounds coincide and cross-hatch in a landscape, like two branches rubbing in the wind with crickets beating time against that pulse. 

Peter Knight writes: “I wanted this to be music that is ‘useful’, the kind of record you want to put on while you are driving. The kind of record that gives you a space to be with your own thoughts. This is accessible music but  it asks interesting questions at the same time, because nothing on it is played in a standard way: the trumpet does not sound the way a trumpet usually sounds, Helen's voice is harmonised, Theo has an unmistakable sound on the guitar, and Quinn brings a very personal voice to his drumming that never sits neatly inside a style. Our forms nod to contemporary jazz but really they sit closer to minimalism.”

“The music is not trying to say anything and it is not asking you to feel a particular way, but what it offers is a space, perhaps a moment of respite from a fractious world. In the best sense it is music that lets you breathe.”

Phosphenes was recorded at Florence Street Studios in Melbourne with engineer Samuel Pankhurst. Each of the pieces is an improvisation tracked live then refined in post by Peter Knight.

“Our music is improvised but with particular ideas in mind. We aim to set up a creative porosity where inspiration flows in every direction and everyone has equal autonomy but with specific limitations that provide conceptual structure. This gives our performances the shape of through-composed journeys with the frisson of improvised approaches still intact.”

• ALBUM CREDITS

  All music composed by TL;DR
  Produced by Peter Knight
  Recorded by Samuel Pankhurst at Florence Street Studios, Melbourne
  Mixed by Peter Knight and Samuel Pankhurst
  Cover photography and design by Peter Knight
  Additional photography by Sarah Walker

• Band biographies

  Peter Knight - trumpet, electronics, synthesisers

  Peter Knight is a composer, trumpeter and producer whose practice moves between genres, categories and cultures, and he has developed an international reputation for extending the possibilities of his instrument, interweaving acoustic preparations and extended techniques with electroacoustic processing via laptop, vintage delays and tape machines. As Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra from 2013 to 2023 he commissioned over 100 works and collaborations with artists including Alvin Lucier, Senyawa, Nicole Lizée and Anthony Braxton, and led the company in performances in more than a dozen countries, winning four AMC Art Music Awards, the Albert H Maggs Composition Prize and several ARIA nominations. Alongside TL;DR, whose debut album was nominated for a 2025 ARIA Award and included in the 2025 NYC Jazz Record Top Ten releases, he tours with Hand to Earth, featuring Yolngu songkeepers Daniel and David Wilfred, which has appeared at Lincoln Center, the Barbican, Dark Mofo and Pierre Boulez Saal, and he performs solo. He also composes for film and theatre, and his recent recordings have been released on ROOM40, 12k and Earshift.
  
  Helen Svoboda - bass, voice, electronics

  Born in Finland and now based in Melbourne, Helen Svoboda is a double bassist, vocalist and composer whose work explores the melodic potential of the contemporary double bass, weaving extended techniques and overtones together with the voice. She won the Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2020, was a Musica Viva Australia FutureMaker in 2023-24 and an Australian Art Orchestra Pathfinders Associate Artist, and performed at the London Jazz Festival and Jazztopad in 2025. Andrew Ford described her on ABC’s The Music Show as “a musician who absolutely defies categorisation”.
  
  Theo Carbo - guitar, electronics, autoharp 

  Theo Carbo is widely regarded as one of the most gifted young musicians in Australia, and his pared back guitar style has brought invitations to work with Barney McAll, Andrea Keller, Sam Anning, Nadje Noordhuis and Paul Williamson. He was a finalist in the National Jazz Awards in 2022 and the Freedman Awards in 2023, co-produced the debut TL;DR album, and was nominated for Best Producer at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.
  
  Quinn Knight - drums 

  Quinn Knight began playing drums at five and was working professionally by fifteen. He plays in The Mouth, the Ghanaian and Sri Lankan influenced quintet led by Ray Pereira and Julien Wilson, in Marley Del Prete’s spiritual jazz quintet and in the Melbourne Trap Orchestra. He studies drum kit at the Victorian College of the Arts and won the Marion Thomas Award in 2024. Quinn recently toured Australia with Geordie Greep (black midi).