The Circling Sun: Spirits [SOUNDWAY RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This Soundway edition was mastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery in London. The band takes its cues from Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, with long horn solos over hypnotic Latin rhythms.

This edition

• Mastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery

About the album

The Circling Sun began in the mid-2000s as a loose collective of New Zealand record collectors, producers and DJs, people who knew their way around a spiritual jazz record long before they made one. London's Soundway, better known for digging up West African and Latin treasures, signed them for this debut.

Julien Dyne (also of The Lahaar) plays drums and percussion and wrote most of the music, J.Y Lee and Cameron Allen play saxophones, flute and bass clarinet, Finn Scholes adds trumpet and vibraphone, Guy Harrison sits at the piano and keys, and Ben Turua plays acoustic bass, a six-piece that sounds far bigger. From "Bones" and "Kohan" through "Spirits (Part 2)" to "Plume," a choir of mostly Pacific Island and Māori singers lifts the music into celestial territory.

Beat Caffeine called it brilliant from start to finish when it arrived in May 2023, and the six pieces on the vinyl are made to be played in one sitting. Nearly twenty years from first jam to first album, which in spiritual jazz terms counts as pacing yourself.

Also at Kops: more The Circling Sun on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Soundway (cat# SNDWLP169), the 2023 album.