PZB 101
Peace, Love & Be Yourself
Friday, June 12, 2026
Immanuel Wilkins - Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live at the Village Vanguard Vol. 3 (Live)
GRAMMY-nominated alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins has released Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard, Vol. 3, the final installment of a searing 3-volume document of his acclaimed quartet in action at the hallowed NYC jazz shrine. Vol. 1 is available on LP, CD, and digital formats while Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 are digital-only releases.
The albums capture Wilkins’ quartet featuring Micah Thomas on piano, Ryoma Takenaga on bass, and Kweku Sumbry on drums taking flight on expansive explorations of Wilkins originals, and one Alice Coltrane composition, in a room steeped in jazz lore. Wilkins indelibly etches his name onto the list of jazz greats who have made seminal live recordings within these same walls.
“Live at the Village Vanguard is a bold endeavor to summon the Vanguard’s sonic history and make it audible,” writes Tina M. Campt in the Vol. 1 liner notes. “It harnesses this legacy and reactivates it as what he defines as practice – a practice of improvisational sounding, congregational listening, and devotional ritual.”
Tracklist:
1. RING SHOUT (Live)
2. COMPOSITION IX (Live)
3. DOLLA$ (Live)
4. PUT 100 ON THE BLUE CHAIN (Live)
HLZ - All My Life
HLZ delivers his debut album for Metalheadz with 'All My Life', a
project shaped by patience, experience and a deep rooted connection to
the label's sound.
The album began with the title track, first played during Goldie's residency at XOYO before eventually making its way to the label, and it was from that moment that the idea of a full-length record started to take shape. Around the same time HLZ moved back to Italy, embracing a slower pace of life that gave him the space and focus to bring the project together.
Rather than following a fixed concept, 'All My Life' grew naturally in the studio. HLZ approached the process with what he calls a sense of humble confidence, trusting his instincts while staying grounded in the culture that shaped him. The aim was simple: to make music that could last beyond the short cycles that often define modern releases.
Across the album, HLZ moves between soulful depth with a classic Metalheadz twang, into moments that push beyond his usual territory. From the title track's unmistakable Headz spirit to more exploratory pieces like 'Roadblock' and the introspective 'Solitary', 'All My Life' captures an artist fully settled in his voice.
More than anything, the album reflects HLZ's deep connection to the music and the sound that has influenced him from the very beginning.
Tracklist:
1. Eagle Dub
2. All My Life
3. The Genie (feat. Cleveland Watkiss)
4. Matter Of Time
5. Love Is Strength
6. Bad Boy Sound
7. Boulevard
8. It's Going Wrong (feat. Bipolar)
9. Solitary
10. Origins
11. Roadblock
12. Avenge
13. Oracles
14. Roughness
15. Blue Codes
16. The Final
The album began with the title track, first played during Goldie's residency at XOYO before eventually making its way to the label, and it was from that moment that the idea of a full-length record started to take shape. Around the same time HLZ moved back to Italy, embracing a slower pace of life that gave him the space and focus to bring the project together.
Rather than following a fixed concept, 'All My Life' grew naturally in the studio. HLZ approached the process with what he calls a sense of humble confidence, trusting his instincts while staying grounded in the culture that shaped him. The aim was simple: to make music that could last beyond the short cycles that often define modern releases.
Across the album, HLZ moves between soulful depth with a classic Metalheadz twang, into moments that push beyond his usual territory. From the title track's unmistakable Headz spirit to more exploratory pieces like 'Roadblock' and the introspective 'Solitary', 'All My Life' captures an artist fully settled in his voice.
More than anything, the album reflects HLZ's deep connection to the music and the sound that has influenced him from the very beginning.
Tracklist:
1. Eagle Dub
2. All My Life
3. The Genie (feat. Cleveland Watkiss)
4. Matter Of Time
5. Love Is Strength
6. Bad Boy Sound
7. Boulevard
8. It's Going Wrong (feat. Bipolar)
9. Solitary
10. Origins
11. Roadblock
12. Avenge
13. Oracles
14. Roughness
15. Blue Codes
16. The Final
Calibre - Tricklemore Sea
Calibre announces his new album ‘Tricklemore Sea’, set for release on
gatefold double vinyl, CD and digital on 1st May via Signature
Recordings.
A deeply personal and exploratory body of work, the album moves through ambient, shoegaze, electronic, blues and folk, all subtly shaped by the low-end sensibility that has defined his music for decades. It resists easy categorisation, reflecting an ongoing interest in blending bass culture with forms that sit outside it. Following the release of ‘They Want You’ at the end of 2025, this new project marks a clear shift in tone. Where that record leans into intensity and forward momentum, ‘Tricklemore Sea’ turns inward, occupying a more introspective space. Featuring entirely his own vocals and production, it carries a more exposed and vulnerable quality.
The album has taken shape gradually, drawing from material written in the years after ‘Planet Hearth’. Rather than forming around a fixed concept, it emerges as a collection of pieces connected by tone and instinct. Tracks move between simplicity and abstraction, with piano-led compositions sitting alongside field recordings, improvisations and bass-driven works. Ideas often begin quickly, then evolve over long periods of revisiting and reworking. His voice takes on a more central role throughout, bringing a heightened sense of vulnerability. Lyrics and delivery are often left open, allowing space for interpretation. His process remains fluid and instinctive, with ideas written quickly, revisited over time and combined across different periods.
Moments such as ‘Little Blend’ carry a quiet melancholia balanced with hope, while ‘Free One’ reflects on the pressures of contemporary life. The title track considers the scale of human existence within a wider universe, framing individual lives as small but meaningful within something larger. Elsewhere, ‘Deflower’ and ‘Pigeon Luncheon’ draw from recordings made in Berlin at the end of lockdown, capturing a sense of movement and return. Older material, including ‘Living In Your Head’ and ‘Hyndsight’, is recontextualised and sits naturally alongside newer work. Threads from his wider catalogue remain present. ‘Able Son Dub’ nods to longstanding reggae influences, while ‘Bit Broken Stream’ appears here in a downtempo form alongside its drum and bass counterpart from ‘They Want You’. Tracks like ‘United Pull’ and ‘Mizzle Mine’ lean further into abstraction, using minimal language and space to suggest mood rather than define it.
Over more than 30 years, Calibre has built a catalogue that moves across drum and bass, ambient, dub, techno, house, jazz, soul, blues and folk. His work is marked by restraint, quiet melancholy and a singular approach that continues to evolve. Complete authorship remains central, with all vocals, lyrics and production on both ‘They Want You’ and ‘Tricklemore Sea’ created solely by him. This breadth extends into his DJ sets, where he draws heavily from his own catalogue, often performing entirely self-produced material across a wide range of tempos and styles. His ability to move between contexts has seen him play at Boomtown, Houghton and Atonal Berlin, delivering distinct sets while maintaining a clear identity.
With ‘Tricklemore Sea’, that identity leans toward stillness, introspection and emotional depth. It is a record that prioritises feeling over definition, holding space for ambiguity while remaining grounded in a strong sense of authorship. Each release carries an element of exposure, a moment of vulnerability in letting the work go. At its core, the album seeks to capture something fleeting but recognisable, a sense of beauty that sits just beyond language.
He describes it simply: “The river inside of me flowing into the sea.”
Tracklist:
1. Little Blend
2. Free One
3. Tricklemore Sea
4. Deflower
5. Living In Your Head
6. Modest
7. Able Son Dub
8. Pigeon Luncheon
9. Hyndsight
10. United Pull
11. Bit Broken
12. Mizzle Mine
13. Inbetween
A deeply personal and exploratory body of work, the album moves through ambient, shoegaze, electronic, blues and folk, all subtly shaped by the low-end sensibility that has defined his music for decades. It resists easy categorisation, reflecting an ongoing interest in blending bass culture with forms that sit outside it. Following the release of ‘They Want You’ at the end of 2025, this new project marks a clear shift in tone. Where that record leans into intensity and forward momentum, ‘Tricklemore Sea’ turns inward, occupying a more introspective space. Featuring entirely his own vocals and production, it carries a more exposed and vulnerable quality.
The album has taken shape gradually, drawing from material written in the years after ‘Planet Hearth’. Rather than forming around a fixed concept, it emerges as a collection of pieces connected by tone and instinct. Tracks move between simplicity and abstraction, with piano-led compositions sitting alongside field recordings, improvisations and bass-driven works. Ideas often begin quickly, then evolve over long periods of revisiting and reworking. His voice takes on a more central role throughout, bringing a heightened sense of vulnerability. Lyrics and delivery are often left open, allowing space for interpretation. His process remains fluid and instinctive, with ideas written quickly, revisited over time and combined across different periods.
Moments such as ‘Little Blend’ carry a quiet melancholia balanced with hope, while ‘Free One’ reflects on the pressures of contemporary life. The title track considers the scale of human existence within a wider universe, framing individual lives as small but meaningful within something larger. Elsewhere, ‘Deflower’ and ‘Pigeon Luncheon’ draw from recordings made in Berlin at the end of lockdown, capturing a sense of movement and return. Older material, including ‘Living In Your Head’ and ‘Hyndsight’, is recontextualised and sits naturally alongside newer work. Threads from his wider catalogue remain present. ‘Able Son Dub’ nods to longstanding reggae influences, while ‘Bit Broken Stream’ appears here in a downtempo form alongside its drum and bass counterpart from ‘They Want You’. Tracks like ‘United Pull’ and ‘Mizzle Mine’ lean further into abstraction, using minimal language and space to suggest mood rather than define it.
Over more than 30 years, Calibre has built a catalogue that moves across drum and bass, ambient, dub, techno, house, jazz, soul, blues and folk. His work is marked by restraint, quiet melancholy and a singular approach that continues to evolve. Complete authorship remains central, with all vocals, lyrics and production on both ‘They Want You’ and ‘Tricklemore Sea’ created solely by him. This breadth extends into his DJ sets, where he draws heavily from his own catalogue, often performing entirely self-produced material across a wide range of tempos and styles. His ability to move between contexts has seen him play at Boomtown, Houghton and Atonal Berlin, delivering distinct sets while maintaining a clear identity.
With ‘Tricklemore Sea’, that identity leans toward stillness, introspection and emotional depth. It is a record that prioritises feeling over definition, holding space for ambiguity while remaining grounded in a strong sense of authorship. Each release carries an element of exposure, a moment of vulnerability in letting the work go. At its core, the album seeks to capture something fleeting but recognisable, a sense of beauty that sits just beyond language.
He describes it simply: “The river inside of me flowing into the sea.”
Tracklist:
1. Little Blend
2. Free One
3. Tricklemore Sea
4. Deflower
5. Living In Your Head
6. Modest
7. Able Son Dub
8. Pigeon Luncheon
9. Hyndsight
10. United Pull
11. Bit Broken
12. Mizzle Mine
13. Inbetween
VA - Brownswood - Twenty Years Deep
Brownswood Recordings mark two decades of boundary-pushing independent
music with Twenty Years Deep, a limited-edition compilation celebrating
the label’s rich, global catalogue and enduring influence.
Founded in 2006 by broadcaster, DJ, and cultural tastemaker Gilles Peterson, Brownswood has spent the last 20 years championing forward-thinking artists who sit just left of centre: rooted in Afro-diasporic music, but never confined by genre. Twenty Years Deep is a snapshot of that journey: a carefully curated collection spanning the label’s early breakthroughs, cult classics, and defining moments.
Twenty Years Deep brings together tracks that reflect Brownswood’s long-standing commitment to artistic freedom, musical lineage, and future-facing sounds. From deep jazz explorations and dancefloor mutations to global collaborations and genre-defying hybrids, the compilation captures the connective thread that has defined the label since day one: trust in artists and belief in music that lasts.
Rather than a greatest-hits exercise, Twenty Years Deep functions as an archive and a statement documenting how Brownswood has maintained its own point of view. By following a highly instinctive approach to A&R the label has shaped music culture, introduced new voices, and built a catalogue that continues to resonate well beyond release cycles.
Tracklist:
1. Gilles Peterson's Havana Cultura Band featuring Dreiser & Sexto Sentido - Orisa
2. Owiny Sigoma Band - Nabed Nade Ei Piny Ka (Rework)
3. Mala - Calle F
4. Diggs Duke - Something In My Soul
5. LV - Hammers and Roses (feat. Tigran Hamasyan)
6. Zara McFarlane - All Africa
7. Sonzeira - Nós precisamos de você (feat. Moses Boyd)
8. Shabaka and the Ancestors - The Observer
9. Daymé Arocena - Eleggua
10. Theon Cross - Brockley
11. Joe Armon-Jones - Mollison Dub
12. STR4TA - Aspects (Demus Dub)
13. Bokani Dyer - Ke Nako
14. Divine Earth - no one else has your magik!
15. Kokoroko - We Give Thanks
16. Yussef Dayes - Chi Ave / A Love Letter to Salvador
17. Emma-Jean Thackray - Save Me
18. Tom Skinner - The Maxim (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello)
19. ZENA, Meron T - IT'S YOU (ANTE NEH) (feat. Meron T)
Founded in 2006 by broadcaster, DJ, and cultural tastemaker Gilles Peterson, Brownswood has spent the last 20 years championing forward-thinking artists who sit just left of centre: rooted in Afro-diasporic music, but never confined by genre. Twenty Years Deep is a snapshot of that journey: a carefully curated collection spanning the label’s early breakthroughs, cult classics, and defining moments.
Twenty Years Deep brings together tracks that reflect Brownswood’s long-standing commitment to artistic freedom, musical lineage, and future-facing sounds. From deep jazz explorations and dancefloor mutations to global collaborations and genre-defying hybrids, the compilation captures the connective thread that has defined the label since day one: trust in artists and belief in music that lasts.
Rather than a greatest-hits exercise, Twenty Years Deep functions as an archive and a statement documenting how Brownswood has maintained its own point of view. By following a highly instinctive approach to A&R the label has shaped music culture, introduced new voices, and built a catalogue that continues to resonate well beyond release cycles.
Tracklist:
1. Gilles Peterson's Havana Cultura Band featuring Dreiser & Sexto Sentido - Orisa
2. Owiny Sigoma Band - Nabed Nade Ei Piny Ka (Rework)
3. Mala - Calle F
4. Diggs Duke - Something In My Soul
5. LV - Hammers and Roses (feat. Tigran Hamasyan)
6. Zara McFarlane - All Africa
7. Sonzeira - Nós precisamos de você (feat. Moses Boyd)
8. Shabaka and the Ancestors - The Observer
9. Daymé Arocena - Eleggua
10. Theon Cross - Brockley
11. Joe Armon-Jones - Mollison Dub
12. STR4TA - Aspects (Demus Dub)
13. Bokani Dyer - Ke Nako
14. Divine Earth - no one else has your magik!
15. Kokoroko - We Give Thanks
16. Yussef Dayes - Chi Ave / A Love Letter to Salvador
17. Emma-Jean Thackray - Save Me
18. Tom Skinner - The Maxim (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello)
19. ZENA, Meron T - IT'S YOU (ANTE NEH) (feat. Meron T)
Lady Wray - Cover Girl (Instrumentals)
Tracklist:
1. My Best Step (Instrumental)
2. Be A Witness (Instrumental)
3. Where Could I Be (Instrumental)
4. Hard Times (Instrumental)
5. Best For Us (Instrumental)
6. Cover Girl (Instrumental)
7. You're Gonna Win (Instrumental)
8. Time (Instrumental)
9. What It Means (Instrumental)
10. Higher (Instrumental)
11. Calm (Instrumental)
1. My Best Step (Instrumental)
2. Be A Witness (Instrumental)
3. Where Could I Be (Instrumental)
4. Hard Times (Instrumental)
5. Best For Us (Instrumental)
6. Cover Girl (Instrumental)
7. You're Gonna Win (Instrumental)
8. Time (Instrumental)
9. What It Means (Instrumental)
10. Higher (Instrumental)
11. Calm (Instrumental)
Norah Jane, MOR.LOV - Godspeed
With Godspeed, Amsterdam’s Norah Jane and producer MOR.LOV present a
debut album that feels both intimate and expansive. A 16-track journey
that traces emotional turbulence, late-night clarity, and the subtle
glow of growth. Building on the momentum of their earlier singles the
full album reveals the true breadth of their collaboration.
The origins of Godspeed lie in a modest gig at Bar Bario, where MOR.LOV first invited vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Norah Jane to perform. What began as an idea to merge her crystalline vocals with MOR.LOV’s palette of jungle breaks and jazz-fusion textures quickly evolved into deeper creative chemistry. Across months of sessions, 30 demos distilled into a tight, narrative-driven sequence of 16 tracks.
At the heart of the record sits its title track, “Godspeed”, written and produced during a moment of shared personal upheaval. MOR.LOV’s production leans into shadowed breaks, ambient tension, and the feeling of something unresolved, while Norah responds almost immediately, shaping the lyrics and flow with instinct rather than deliberation. Minimal edits preserve its emotional imprint, a moment captured in its rawest form.
As a whole, Godspeed moves fluidly across UK jazz, lo-fi jazz, fusion, jungle-adjacent rhythms, and late-night soul, while never drifting from its central emotional thread. Features from SB ARRA, Razeen, and Groove God Jaïr Darnoud expand the record’s world without diluting its intimacy. Tracks like “Babylon”, “School Trip”, and “Flowers in London” showcase the album’s blend of playful experimentation and diaristic vulnerability, music that captures fleeting truths with cinematic detail.
Godspeed arrives after the duo’s 2025 project A Minute - a five-track EP drifting between hazy romance, dub-tinged grooves and soulful, melancholic reflection. Where A Minute captured small chapters, Godspeed steps back to examine the full story. It marks the pair’s most cohesive and personal body of work to date. Together, they’ve crafted a world that feels new yet familiar, a record that sits comfortably alongside Europe’s rising alternative vanguards while carving out a space entirely its own.
Tracklist:
1. There Is No Greater Love
2. Hiding
3. A Minute
4. School Trip
5. Courtesy
6. Godspeed
7. No Regrets
8. Focus
9. Is It
10. N1 Dub
11. Babylon
12. Distracted
13. Come Around
14. What Does Not Come to You Does Not Belong to You
15. Flowers in London
16. Poison
The origins of Godspeed lie in a modest gig at Bar Bario, where MOR.LOV first invited vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Norah Jane to perform. What began as an idea to merge her crystalline vocals with MOR.LOV’s palette of jungle breaks and jazz-fusion textures quickly evolved into deeper creative chemistry. Across months of sessions, 30 demos distilled into a tight, narrative-driven sequence of 16 tracks.
At the heart of the record sits its title track, “Godspeed”, written and produced during a moment of shared personal upheaval. MOR.LOV’s production leans into shadowed breaks, ambient tension, and the feeling of something unresolved, while Norah responds almost immediately, shaping the lyrics and flow with instinct rather than deliberation. Minimal edits preserve its emotional imprint, a moment captured in its rawest form.
As a whole, Godspeed moves fluidly across UK jazz, lo-fi jazz, fusion, jungle-adjacent rhythms, and late-night soul, while never drifting from its central emotional thread. Features from SB ARRA, Razeen, and Groove God Jaïr Darnoud expand the record’s world without diluting its intimacy. Tracks like “Babylon”, “School Trip”, and “Flowers in London” showcase the album’s blend of playful experimentation and diaristic vulnerability, music that captures fleeting truths with cinematic detail.
Godspeed arrives after the duo’s 2025 project A Minute - a five-track EP drifting between hazy romance, dub-tinged grooves and soulful, melancholic reflection. Where A Minute captured small chapters, Godspeed steps back to examine the full story. It marks the pair’s most cohesive and personal body of work to date. Together, they’ve crafted a world that feels new yet familiar, a record that sits comfortably alongside Europe’s rising alternative vanguards while carving out a space entirely its own.
Tracklist:
1. There Is No Greater Love
2. Hiding
3. A Minute
4. School Trip
5. Courtesy
6. Godspeed
7. No Regrets
8. Focus
9. Is It
10. N1 Dub
11. Babylon
12. Distracted
13. Come Around
14. What Does Not Come to You Does Not Belong to You
15. Flowers in London
16. Poison
Antonio Vale da Conceicao - The Violin Case (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Violin Case (Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack) marks the first feature-length scoring assignment for
Portuguese-Macanese composer António Vale da Conceição, written for the
debut feature by director Max Bessmertny (2025). The film unfolds over a
single night in Macao — the former Portuguese enclave on China's
southern coast — as a struggling American painter frantically searches
for a violin artwork left behind in a taxi. The soundtrack is released
on Plaza Mayor Company Ltd, a London/Hong Kong-based independent label
specialising in international film scores.
Conceição's music mirrors the very fabric of Macao itself: a city of five languages and layered cultural identities. Across eighteen cues, the score weaves cinematic textures and rhythmic precision into an intimate sonic journey that moves from nocturnal unease ("Sauvage", "The Taxi Ride") through moments of wry comedy ("Mah Jeong Is Good", "Le Party") and deepening existential drift ("He So Sad", "Lost Baby"). Track titles in English, French, Spanish, and transliterated Cantonese echo the film's multilingual cast and its surrealist odyssey through Macao's back alleys after dark.
The film was shot in September 2022 on location across forty Macao sites, drawing on the city's social aesthetic from the 1970s through the 1990s. Conceição, whose previous credits include INA, Beautiful Game, and Beyond the Spreadsheet: The Story of TM1, brings his characteristic ability to craft soundscapes that shift between intimate melody and expansive layered arrangement — a quality well suited to a story that Bessmertny explicitly modelled on Scorsese's After Hours: a city-at-night thriller in which a single misfortune spirals inexorably out of control.
Tracklist:
1. Sauvage
2. The Flying Robber
3. The Taxi Ride
4. The Taxi Driver
5. I'm Somebody
6. Rashed
7. Le Party
8. Let Me In
9. No Me Diga Que No Duele
10. Sauvage Deux
11. Pretty
12. Napoleon on the Beach
13. Hanoi
14. I Remember You
15. He So Sad
16. Lost Baby
17. Mah Jeong Is Good
18. Baby is Lost
Conceição's music mirrors the very fabric of Macao itself: a city of five languages and layered cultural identities. Across eighteen cues, the score weaves cinematic textures and rhythmic precision into an intimate sonic journey that moves from nocturnal unease ("Sauvage", "The Taxi Ride") through moments of wry comedy ("Mah Jeong Is Good", "Le Party") and deepening existential drift ("He So Sad", "Lost Baby"). Track titles in English, French, Spanish, and transliterated Cantonese echo the film's multilingual cast and its surrealist odyssey through Macao's back alleys after dark.
The film was shot in September 2022 on location across forty Macao sites, drawing on the city's social aesthetic from the 1970s through the 1990s. Conceição, whose previous credits include INA, Beautiful Game, and Beyond the Spreadsheet: The Story of TM1, brings his characteristic ability to craft soundscapes that shift between intimate melody and expansive layered arrangement — a quality well suited to a story that Bessmertny explicitly modelled on Scorsese's After Hours: a city-at-night thriller in which a single misfortune spirals inexorably out of control.
Tracklist:
1. Sauvage
2. The Flying Robber
3. The Taxi Ride
4. The Taxi Driver
5. I'm Somebody
6. Rashed
7. Le Party
8. Let Me In
9. No Me Diga Que No Duele
10. Sauvage Deux
11. Pretty
12. Napoleon on the Beach
13. Hanoi
14. I Remember You
15. He So Sad
16. Lost Baby
17. Mah Jeong Is Good
18. Baby is Lost
Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet - Happy Today
Happy Today, the third album from guitarist/bandleader Jeff Parker’s
long-running ETA IVtet, was recorded live at Lodge Room in Los Angeles
on August 20, 2025. This fresh entry into the IVtet’s catalog captures
Parker and the band – including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna
Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson – on record outside of the
now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA for the first time.
The performance also captures a distinctly joyful night of togetherness set against the backdrop of dark times. “2025 was a very difficult year for me and my family,” Parker says. “Dealing with being displaced from the Eaton fires for eight months, and the kind of toll that that instability took on my family’s mental health and general outlook, coupled with Donald Trump being back in office and basically making life miserable for everyone… There was a lot of sadness and despair. But feeling the sense of community that we created with our concert, and later hearing the recording, seeing the beautiful footage that had been shot and the photographs of such joy to be back in that space and to be making music again: It was a very happy moment. So I called the record Happy Today. It’s meant to be a statement of joy.”
That joy and camaraderie found in communal space seems to be a major catalyst for the ETA IVtet’s music. The band’s audience is, somehow, an essential part of the formula. Case in point: the show at Lodge Room was actually meant to be the cherry on top of a weekend of studio sessions by the band. Those sessions were intended to be the next album released by the group, its first ever studio record. Upon listening back, though, it was clear to Parker that the Lodge Room performance was the recording that shined brightest and felt most true to the band’s spirit, harkening back to the weekly session the four musicians held at ETA for so many years.
ETA was undoubtedly more than just the namesake of the band. Part laboratory, part low-stakes proving ground, it’s where the language of the IVtet’s sound percolated and coalesced over the course of an almost mythical seven-year-long Monday night residency that yielded two critically-acclaimed records—2022’s Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy and 2024’s The Way Out of Easy—and an instantly recognizable group sound.
Happy Today is that sound—the IVtet's signature syntax built around long-form, minimalist improvisation—expanding confidently into a larger space while creating the same hypnotizing, deeply-tuned listening effect on visibly enraptured audiences. The album contains two sidelong pieces recorded as the band performed in the round at Lodge Room, surrounded by an audience of 400 or so deep listeners. (The venue, appropriately enough, sits on the same street and just a few hundred feet away from the storefront that used to be ETA.)
The drastic change in venue size, and this document in general, is representative of an expanding demand to experience this band live that has been surging for years, starting with the release of their debut album Mondays. For the subsequent, final year that ETA was open, there would typically be a line down the block on Monday evenings, with far more people trying to catch the show than the club could hold. Even if you could get inside the building, given the limited capacity, the IVtet was a difficult band to actually see play. Couple that with the fact that before the closure of the club in December 2023, the IVtet had never played outside of Los Angeles. Access to the live experience had been extremely limited, and that has seemed to feed a sense of mystery and allure around the band’s music for the many fans of Mondays and The Way Out of Easy.
On paper, the IVtet’s growing audience is something of a conundrum. After all, minimal longform improvisation is likely the precise antithesis of streaming-centered content culture. Despite that, at the show that produced Happy Today, as with any IVtet show, the audience willingly settles into and accepts the band’s pace as they iron out a story which digs deeply into every facet of an idea before investigating a new one. Here the attention economy feels lightyears away, the crowd instead surrendering to that old and very human penchant for listening. With open ears, the crowd stands ready for a big yarn, a long tale, and from the jump there seems to be a trust between performer and audience that mimics the trust between the musicians as they move from detail to detail.
“The band isn't afraid to explore static spaces,” says Parker. “It seems like the thing is to stay on one idea for a while. Really, for a long time. To kind of exhaust it. And then one person shifts and then the thing moves together.”
“Everybody is constantly dropping crumbs and you can take them or you can leave them,” agrees Bellerose. “There are these little hints, these little moments, and everybody's aware of them.”
“When it is time to change, it can change very quickly,” says Butterss. “If someone suggests a new idea, it can flip in an instant. Everyone's constantly ready to go with it if the moment calls for it.”
“Like Swimwear,” the side-length opener of Happy Today, contains a quintessential example of this distinct IVtet move. The track gets off the ground slowly but deliberately, ramping up tension over the course of its first ten minutes without a moment of harmonic dissonance. The band, rather, steadily pulls at the corners of the rhythm. Here each member steps forward and backward in the sonic space to build a gleefully disorienting group cadence, where the repetitions of the individual overlap in such a trancelike way that even soloistic breaks from Parker’s electric guitar or Johnson’s effected alto sax never manage to snap the tension wire. Bellerose works deep into the rhythmic fascia, employing all manner of auxiliary percussion—strewn across his kit, tucked into his shoe, or wrapped around his legs—all without a hint of novelty. Every micro-choice comes from a place of both curiosity and confidence.
And then the shift: just as the thing is about to come unglued Bellerose opts into a smooth, low-register downbeat groove that Butterss has been auditioning for the previous minute or so. Parker swiftly kicks into an organ-like drone while Johnson and Butterss stay the course. It’s a series of decisions that could go any number of ways depending on the night, like running water pushing into fresh geography, moving from tributary to mainstream, past the levee and into the floodplain. There is no set path; if it went a different direction it would still be the cumulative result of the same water flowing.
That is to say that there are no hard and fast rules to what the IVtet does. Defining the music, in fact, is something that the band takes special care not to do. Living in that mystery, it seems, helps to keep the path open, cleared to push into new and satisfying territory.
“For me, the thing to protect is just where it started from, which was freedom and openness,” says Bellerose. “In the early days of the band Jeff was recognizing how we were all communicating within the structure of playing standards. He's one of the greatest producers I've ever worked with because he has this vision. And a big part of producing is casting—putting the right people in the room. So these shifts, they're completely natural within these improvised pieces that we do because the foundation was there and Jeff knew it. He had already noticed the communication within the band, but wanted to really push it further.”
The key to Parker’s push lies in the generosity to step back, to allow each member an equal voice, and to de-center himself. What we hear on Happy Today is an egalitarian group sound by design, curious and intuitive.
“Everybody's listening in a way where it's not always like ‘I'm going to go with you’,” says Johnson. “But it's always ‘I hear you’. And sometimes it's ‘I hear you and I'm going to stay here and allow the tension of these two things to exist for a while before maybe joining you.’ But the thing that's cool is that everybody’s hearing it. Because of the time that we've spent together there’s a maturity to the listening—a very special version of deep listening.”
“The number of times that we've talked about the music is so few compared to the years and years of playing,” Johnson continues. “I think that's one of the really beautiful things about the band—how organically the way that we play together has come about and evolved over time. Definitely on brand for the music that the band makes too. Slowly evolving, long form development.”
“I learned how to improvise in this band,” reveals Butterss, astonishingly. “I didn't really play improvised music before. So my whole approach to improvisation has been shaped by playing with Jeff, Jay, and Josh. It is a band and it has its own language. I think you could drop the needle on any of the recordings and people would be able to say ‘that's the quartet.’ It's very distinctive and it's developed very organically. We have never talked about it, I don't think.”
“That's our band,” says Parker of “Like Swimwear,” almost with an outsider’s sense of fascination at the recording. He seems to feel the same enchantment and surprise that the audience does while listening, despite being a primary part of the process. “That's it. I mean, that's what the ETA Quartet does.”
It’s a blessing for this band to be so expertly documented in its naturally public, live context. The two sidelong improvisations from Lodge Room that make up Happy Today, as with the recordings that made up the IVtet’s first two albums, are beautifully rendered by engineer Bryce Gonzales—recorded and mixed live, direct to a Nagra tape machine utilizing a compact outboard rig that he built himself, specifically to record this band. Much like the thumbprint originality coming from the players themselves, Gonzales’ capture of the music is its own signature, his mixes a form of sound improvisation themselves.
A major addition to this particular presentation is the full album length film by Charlie Weinmann, documenting the band's performance of Happy Today at Lodge Room, which will be released in tandem with the album. A shadow-laden, almost noirlike capture of the band in its full sprawling glory, Weinmann’s camera makes the joyful reality of seeing the IVtet at work widely accessible for the first time.
With Happy Today the reach of Parker’s IVtet extends further than ever before, but the essential formula, if there is one, remains the same. The anchor seems to be in variations on an almost alchemical communication—a feeling of connection between band members, sure, but also between the band and the audience. It’s an ongoing trust exercise, born organically in the corner of a small room in Los Angeles and flowing outward at exactly its own natural pace. It’s social music with a clear ability to move those willing to listen. Happy Today is an invitation to become part of the exchange and experience the joy of deep listening.
Tracklist:
1. Like Swimwear
2. Happy Today
3. Like Swimwear (part one)
4. Like Swimwear (part two)
The performance also captures a distinctly joyful night of togetherness set against the backdrop of dark times. “2025 was a very difficult year for me and my family,” Parker says. “Dealing with being displaced from the Eaton fires for eight months, and the kind of toll that that instability took on my family’s mental health and general outlook, coupled with Donald Trump being back in office and basically making life miserable for everyone… There was a lot of sadness and despair. But feeling the sense of community that we created with our concert, and later hearing the recording, seeing the beautiful footage that had been shot and the photographs of such joy to be back in that space and to be making music again: It was a very happy moment. So I called the record Happy Today. It’s meant to be a statement of joy.”
That joy and camaraderie found in communal space seems to be a major catalyst for the ETA IVtet’s music. The band’s audience is, somehow, an essential part of the formula. Case in point: the show at Lodge Room was actually meant to be the cherry on top of a weekend of studio sessions by the band. Those sessions were intended to be the next album released by the group, its first ever studio record. Upon listening back, though, it was clear to Parker that the Lodge Room performance was the recording that shined brightest and felt most true to the band’s spirit, harkening back to the weekly session the four musicians held at ETA for so many years.
ETA was undoubtedly more than just the namesake of the band. Part laboratory, part low-stakes proving ground, it’s where the language of the IVtet’s sound percolated and coalesced over the course of an almost mythical seven-year-long Monday night residency that yielded two critically-acclaimed records—2022’s Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy and 2024’s The Way Out of Easy—and an instantly recognizable group sound.
Happy Today is that sound—the IVtet's signature syntax built around long-form, minimalist improvisation—expanding confidently into a larger space while creating the same hypnotizing, deeply-tuned listening effect on visibly enraptured audiences. The album contains two sidelong pieces recorded as the band performed in the round at Lodge Room, surrounded by an audience of 400 or so deep listeners. (The venue, appropriately enough, sits on the same street and just a few hundred feet away from the storefront that used to be ETA.)
The drastic change in venue size, and this document in general, is representative of an expanding demand to experience this band live that has been surging for years, starting with the release of their debut album Mondays. For the subsequent, final year that ETA was open, there would typically be a line down the block on Monday evenings, with far more people trying to catch the show than the club could hold. Even if you could get inside the building, given the limited capacity, the IVtet was a difficult band to actually see play. Couple that with the fact that before the closure of the club in December 2023, the IVtet had never played outside of Los Angeles. Access to the live experience had been extremely limited, and that has seemed to feed a sense of mystery and allure around the band’s music for the many fans of Mondays and The Way Out of Easy.
On paper, the IVtet’s growing audience is something of a conundrum. After all, minimal longform improvisation is likely the precise antithesis of streaming-centered content culture. Despite that, at the show that produced Happy Today, as with any IVtet show, the audience willingly settles into and accepts the band’s pace as they iron out a story which digs deeply into every facet of an idea before investigating a new one. Here the attention economy feels lightyears away, the crowd instead surrendering to that old and very human penchant for listening. With open ears, the crowd stands ready for a big yarn, a long tale, and from the jump there seems to be a trust between performer and audience that mimics the trust between the musicians as they move from detail to detail.
“The band isn't afraid to explore static spaces,” says Parker. “It seems like the thing is to stay on one idea for a while. Really, for a long time. To kind of exhaust it. And then one person shifts and then the thing moves together.”
“Everybody is constantly dropping crumbs and you can take them or you can leave them,” agrees Bellerose. “There are these little hints, these little moments, and everybody's aware of them.”
“When it is time to change, it can change very quickly,” says Butterss. “If someone suggests a new idea, it can flip in an instant. Everyone's constantly ready to go with it if the moment calls for it.”
“Like Swimwear,” the side-length opener of Happy Today, contains a quintessential example of this distinct IVtet move. The track gets off the ground slowly but deliberately, ramping up tension over the course of its first ten minutes without a moment of harmonic dissonance. The band, rather, steadily pulls at the corners of the rhythm. Here each member steps forward and backward in the sonic space to build a gleefully disorienting group cadence, where the repetitions of the individual overlap in such a trancelike way that even soloistic breaks from Parker’s electric guitar or Johnson’s effected alto sax never manage to snap the tension wire. Bellerose works deep into the rhythmic fascia, employing all manner of auxiliary percussion—strewn across his kit, tucked into his shoe, or wrapped around his legs—all without a hint of novelty. Every micro-choice comes from a place of both curiosity and confidence.
And then the shift: just as the thing is about to come unglued Bellerose opts into a smooth, low-register downbeat groove that Butterss has been auditioning for the previous minute or so. Parker swiftly kicks into an organ-like drone while Johnson and Butterss stay the course. It’s a series of decisions that could go any number of ways depending on the night, like running water pushing into fresh geography, moving from tributary to mainstream, past the levee and into the floodplain. There is no set path; if it went a different direction it would still be the cumulative result of the same water flowing.
That is to say that there are no hard and fast rules to what the IVtet does. Defining the music, in fact, is something that the band takes special care not to do. Living in that mystery, it seems, helps to keep the path open, cleared to push into new and satisfying territory.
“For me, the thing to protect is just where it started from, which was freedom and openness,” says Bellerose. “In the early days of the band Jeff was recognizing how we were all communicating within the structure of playing standards. He's one of the greatest producers I've ever worked with because he has this vision. And a big part of producing is casting—putting the right people in the room. So these shifts, they're completely natural within these improvised pieces that we do because the foundation was there and Jeff knew it. He had already noticed the communication within the band, but wanted to really push it further.”
The key to Parker’s push lies in the generosity to step back, to allow each member an equal voice, and to de-center himself. What we hear on Happy Today is an egalitarian group sound by design, curious and intuitive.
“Everybody's listening in a way where it's not always like ‘I'm going to go with you’,” says Johnson. “But it's always ‘I hear you’. And sometimes it's ‘I hear you and I'm going to stay here and allow the tension of these two things to exist for a while before maybe joining you.’ But the thing that's cool is that everybody’s hearing it. Because of the time that we've spent together there’s a maturity to the listening—a very special version of deep listening.”
“The number of times that we've talked about the music is so few compared to the years and years of playing,” Johnson continues. “I think that's one of the really beautiful things about the band—how organically the way that we play together has come about and evolved over time. Definitely on brand for the music that the band makes too. Slowly evolving, long form development.”
“I learned how to improvise in this band,” reveals Butterss, astonishingly. “I didn't really play improvised music before. So my whole approach to improvisation has been shaped by playing with Jeff, Jay, and Josh. It is a band and it has its own language. I think you could drop the needle on any of the recordings and people would be able to say ‘that's the quartet.’ It's very distinctive and it's developed very organically. We have never talked about it, I don't think.”
“That's our band,” says Parker of “Like Swimwear,” almost with an outsider’s sense of fascination at the recording. He seems to feel the same enchantment and surprise that the audience does while listening, despite being a primary part of the process. “That's it. I mean, that's what the ETA Quartet does.”
It’s a blessing for this band to be so expertly documented in its naturally public, live context. The two sidelong improvisations from Lodge Room that make up Happy Today, as with the recordings that made up the IVtet’s first two albums, are beautifully rendered by engineer Bryce Gonzales—recorded and mixed live, direct to a Nagra tape machine utilizing a compact outboard rig that he built himself, specifically to record this band. Much like the thumbprint originality coming from the players themselves, Gonzales’ capture of the music is its own signature, his mixes a form of sound improvisation themselves.
A major addition to this particular presentation is the full album length film by Charlie Weinmann, documenting the band's performance of Happy Today at Lodge Room, which will be released in tandem with the album. A shadow-laden, almost noirlike capture of the band in its full sprawling glory, Weinmann’s camera makes the joyful reality of seeing the IVtet at work widely accessible for the first time.
With Happy Today the reach of Parker’s IVtet extends further than ever before, but the essential formula, if there is one, remains the same. The anchor seems to be in variations on an almost alchemical communication—a feeling of connection between band members, sure, but also between the band and the audience. It’s an ongoing trust exercise, born organically in the corner of a small room in Los Angeles and flowing outward at exactly its own natural pace. It’s social music with a clear ability to move those willing to listen. Happy Today is an invitation to become part of the exchange and experience the joy of deep listening.
Tracklist:
1. Like Swimwear
2. Happy Today
3. Like Swimwear (part one)
4. Like Swimwear (part two)
Slowe - In Moments
“This week we we’re completely blown away by Slowe” Sian Eleri (Selector Radio)
“Sonics that I think will keep you cosy when it is quite grey outside ... Really lush bass line, and swirling chords, signature ethereal vocals” Jess Iszatt (BBC Radio 1)
"Beautiful new one out..." Craig Charles (BBC 6 Music)
“How good was that? ... Absolutely love that, really do” Tony Minvielle (Jazz FM)
“Love this!” Rohan Rakhit (Worldwide FM)
Bristol-based artist, songwriter and producer Slowe unveils her long-awaited second album In Moments, a vintage-dipped collection that captures the fleeting, fragile, quietly transformative fragments of late-twenties life.
Where her acclaimed debut, Where The Mind Wanders, introduced Slowe as a self-taught producer with a meticulous ear and lo-fi soul aesthetic, In Moments leans further into richness, depth and full-band warmth, without losing the intimacy that has always defined her work. Across In Moments, Slowe writes in real time, tracking shifts in relationships, the weight of anxiety, tiny joys, the ache of self-awareness and the slow, sometimes reluctant evolution that adulthood demands.
“This album is a meditation on change: fearing it, needing it and learning to let it shape me. Across its songs run the threads of self-doubt, shifting relationships, quiet joys and the bittersweet weight of time. It’s about the laughter that erupts without reason, the sting of tears in the middle of happiness, the moments when the heart takes a step before the mind is ready” Slowe
Those themes thread through every corner of the record, from the soul-soaked grooves of “How Hard Can It Be”, to the quiet resilience of “Sundown”, the emotional tension of “Too Much to Ask” and the quiet acceptance in “Temporary (You’ll Be Gone)”. The album expands further into upbeat, melodic territory with tracks like “Lifeline”, dips into hazy, late-night grooves on focus track “Puzzle” and “Mind/Body” and pares everything back in the stripped-down reflections of “Pen to Paper” and “Rhyme or Reason”.
Slowe has been sharing regular record-collection videos on her socials, earning a stamp of approval from legends Chuck D and De La Soul. This deep love of music is reflected throughout In Moments, which draws from the golden textures of Bill Withers, Minnie Riperton, Ebo Taylor and ‘70s soul, while also aligning with the modern alt-R&B and neo-soul sensibilities of artists like Sault and Joy Crookes. Nostalgic harmonies, glowing chord work and live instrumentation mingle with Slowe’s signature drum programming and glistening production details, a balance between classic soul and contemporary dreaminess.
Recorded between her home studio and sessions with long-time collaborator, Laurence Fazakerley Buglass, a fellow Bristol-based producer and instrumentalist, the album is a conversation between the intimacy of bedroom production and the energy of musicians breathing together in a room. Contributions from her circle within Bristol’s thriving jazz and neo-soul scenes bring additional depth, horn lines that flicker like candlelight, rhythm sections that move with patient confidence and harmonies stacked in rich, analogue shades.
If Where The Mind Wanders was inward-looking, a scrapbook of private thoughts, In Moments feels more grounded, intentional, sure of its own softness. It’s a record that sits with uncertainty, hope, longing and acceptance. It takes its time and invites listeners to do the same.
“These are moments of mine,” Slowe says, “and now I’m placing them gently in your hands. My hope is that you’ll share these moments with me and find echoes of your own on the way.”
Organic and deeply human, In Moments is Slowe at her most focused and emotionally attuned. A soul-rooted exploration of change, captured with the honesty, subtlety and quiet power that have become unmistakably hers.
Tracklist:
1. How Hard Can It Be?
2. What If
3. Puzzle
4. Too Much to Ask
5. Pen to Paper
6. Rhyme or Reason
7. Not Asking the Stars
8. Temporary (You'll Be Gone)
9. Mind/Body
10. Careful Now
11. Lifeline (feat. Ethan Mark)
12. Sundown (feat. Alamay)
“Sonics that I think will keep you cosy when it is quite grey outside ... Really lush bass line, and swirling chords, signature ethereal vocals” Jess Iszatt (BBC Radio 1)
"Beautiful new one out..." Craig Charles (BBC 6 Music)
“How good was that? ... Absolutely love that, really do” Tony Minvielle (Jazz FM)
“Love this!” Rohan Rakhit (Worldwide FM)
Bristol-based artist, songwriter and producer Slowe unveils her long-awaited second album In Moments, a vintage-dipped collection that captures the fleeting, fragile, quietly transformative fragments of late-twenties life.
Where her acclaimed debut, Where The Mind Wanders, introduced Slowe as a self-taught producer with a meticulous ear and lo-fi soul aesthetic, In Moments leans further into richness, depth and full-band warmth, without losing the intimacy that has always defined her work. Across In Moments, Slowe writes in real time, tracking shifts in relationships, the weight of anxiety, tiny joys, the ache of self-awareness and the slow, sometimes reluctant evolution that adulthood demands.
“This album is a meditation on change: fearing it, needing it and learning to let it shape me. Across its songs run the threads of self-doubt, shifting relationships, quiet joys and the bittersweet weight of time. It’s about the laughter that erupts without reason, the sting of tears in the middle of happiness, the moments when the heart takes a step before the mind is ready” Slowe
Those themes thread through every corner of the record, from the soul-soaked grooves of “How Hard Can It Be”, to the quiet resilience of “Sundown”, the emotional tension of “Too Much to Ask” and the quiet acceptance in “Temporary (You’ll Be Gone)”. The album expands further into upbeat, melodic territory with tracks like “Lifeline”, dips into hazy, late-night grooves on focus track “Puzzle” and “Mind/Body” and pares everything back in the stripped-down reflections of “Pen to Paper” and “Rhyme or Reason”.
Slowe has been sharing regular record-collection videos on her socials, earning a stamp of approval from legends Chuck D and De La Soul. This deep love of music is reflected throughout In Moments, which draws from the golden textures of Bill Withers, Minnie Riperton, Ebo Taylor and ‘70s soul, while also aligning with the modern alt-R&B and neo-soul sensibilities of artists like Sault and Joy Crookes. Nostalgic harmonies, glowing chord work and live instrumentation mingle with Slowe’s signature drum programming and glistening production details, a balance between classic soul and contemporary dreaminess.
Recorded between her home studio and sessions with long-time collaborator, Laurence Fazakerley Buglass, a fellow Bristol-based producer and instrumentalist, the album is a conversation between the intimacy of bedroom production and the energy of musicians breathing together in a room. Contributions from her circle within Bristol’s thriving jazz and neo-soul scenes bring additional depth, horn lines that flicker like candlelight, rhythm sections that move with patient confidence and harmonies stacked in rich, analogue shades.
If Where The Mind Wanders was inward-looking, a scrapbook of private thoughts, In Moments feels more grounded, intentional, sure of its own softness. It’s a record that sits with uncertainty, hope, longing and acceptance. It takes its time and invites listeners to do the same.
“These are moments of mine,” Slowe says, “and now I’m placing them gently in your hands. My hope is that you’ll share these moments with me and find echoes of your own on the way.”
Organic and deeply human, In Moments is Slowe at her most focused and emotionally attuned. A soul-rooted exploration of change, captured with the honesty, subtlety and quiet power that have become unmistakably hers.
Tracklist:
1. How Hard Can It Be?
2. What If
3. Puzzle
4. Too Much to Ask
5. Pen to Paper
6. Rhyme or Reason
7. Not Asking the Stars
8. Temporary (You'll Be Gone)
9. Mind/Body
10. Careful Now
11. Lifeline (feat. Ethan Mark)
12. Sundown (feat. Alamay)








