SUN | VINYL RECORD (LP)

Zoh Amba, Sun is the first album by Tennessee native and baritone saxophonist Zoh Amba for the Oslo-based imprint Smalltown Supersound - and her second album following 2022's Oh Sun on Tzadik label. On Sun, Amba introduces a newly assembled group with a set of compositions that blur the line between performance and process - where both the music and the act of capturing it unfold in real time, guided in part by improvisational recording techniques. As a bandleader, Amba navigates the edges of an improvisational delta, where spiritual jazz and free folk emerge not as separate genres, but as tributaries of the same current, each flowing from a shared belief in music as a sacred force. The decision to release Sun on Smalltown Supersound was born from a common connection to the late German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, who was both a spiritual mentor to Amba and released several records on the label. And while the album is rooted in American folk traditions, it's Brötzmann's fearless spirit - itself an immense historical catalyst for European free jazz - that runs like a current through the ensemble's musical collaboration and it's experimental recording techniques. For Amba however, it was important that the ensemble - consisting of Caroline Morton (bass), Lex Korton (piano), Miguel Marcel Russel (percussion) - establish deeper musical connection before the recording process took place: "We spent days just playing together, and I was trying to mentally take notes of what naturally wanted to exist in this band - before giving instructions or handing out sheet music. I wanted to see where we were all standing in life, right at that moment. From there, I started carving out the process with them. That's how the structure of the band and the approach to the record came about."