New Release Friday playlist updates

Friday again, and the new releases have dropped. Our New Jazz Releases Spotify playlist is updated each week with the tracks that have genuinely caught our attention — the ones worth making time for. This week’s selection runs from a drummer’s genre-blurring solo statement to a Viennese post-bop workout, plus a returning favourite from an ECM legend that readers asked us to keep on the list. Here’s what we’ve added, and why.

Terje Evensen — “Reclusive Mountain” (from Reclusive Mountain)

Terje Evensen’s Reclusive Mountain is one of the more distinctive drummer-led records we’ve come across this year, built on the idea of drums and electronics functioning as a single, unified voice rather than separate ingredients. The title track sets that concept out clearly, with a patiently evolving groove and Nils Petter Molvær’s trumpet floating above it like a call heard from somewhere in the dark. We were impressed enough to give the album a full review this week — read it for the details on the serpent that closes the record out, an instrument we didn’t expect to hear on a contemporary jazz session.

Richard Spaven — “Out of the Quite” (from Light of Day)

Richard Spaven has spent two decades making other people’s records groove, and Light of Day is the sound of him bringing that instinct to his own writing. The title track carries the album’s Middle Eastern-tinged rhythmic language particularly well, with guitar and keys building out a sound world that sits comfortably between jazz, ambient and R&B. It’s a genuinely layered, contemporary record without ever becoming a difficult listen, and we’ve published a full review this week covering the whole album track by track.

River feat. Alex Sipiagin — “Ood!”

“Ood!” is an eight-minute statement from the Vienna-based quartet River, built around a composition by saxophonist Robert Unterköfler and featuring trumpeter Alex Sipiagin as a guest voice. The track leans into intricate, contrapuntal horn writing before opening out into high-energy, multi-layered improvisation, and it wears its modern post-bop framework well — individual virtuosity from Sipiagin and Unterköfler sitting inside a genuinely collective sound rather than overwhelming it. Recorded at Hideout Recording Studio in Vienna with Erik Asatrian on keyboards, Nina Feldgrill on electric bass and Simon Springer on drums, it’s a confident single from a band worth keeping an eye on.

Steve Swallow — “Six” (from Winter Songs)

Steve Swallow needs no introduction to anyone who has followed jazz bass playing over the last six decades, but Winter Songs still marks something of an event — his first album as a leader in thirteen years, out now on ECM. Written as a reflective response to personal grief and loss, the record trades the driving, turbulent improvisation Swallow has built a career around for something more patient: flexible time, space, and a chamber-jazz intimacy that suits the material completely. He’s surrounded himself with longtime associates for the session — Gil Goldstein on piano, Steve Cardenas on guitar, Chris Cheek on saxophone, Mike Rodriguez on trumpet, and Adam Nussbaum on drums — and the familiarity shows in how unhurried the whole thing feels.

“Six” is the track we keep returning to. Swallow’s electric bass sits low and lyrical under Goldstein’s piano voicings, and there’s a restraint to the writing that never tips into sparseness for its own sake — this is a working band listening closely to one another, not a leader working through material alone. Given the circumstances behind the record, that sense of company feels like the point. It’s stayed on our playlist this week by popular demand, and it holds up just as well on a second visit.

All four tracks are on our New Jazz Releases Spotify playlist, updated every Friday with the best new music hitting the platforms. If you’re not following it yet, now is a good time to start — it’s the quickest way to stay across what’s worth hearing each week.

New Release Spotify Playlist

The Jazz In Europe New Release playlist features tracks from the new releases featured on Jazz In Europe. Updated weekly, this playlist is the perfect place to discover new music from the leading jazz musicians currently on the scene. We hope you enjoy this selection.