Endlessness Nala Sinephro

Album review

Nala Sinephro is proof that the quieter you become, the more you hear. If the few conversations she has had with journalists to date are anything to go by, her soft-spoken nature is by no means a reflection of any internal weariness or indifference. You sense that Sinephro is a rare personality: the kind who silences a room when she has something to say, as if the slightest interjection could spoil the delicate wisdom to be found in whatever message she has to impart.

When her first album, Space 1.8, came out in 2021, it was evident that something special was happening—this despite the wealth of mind-bending contemporary jazz that is being produced in London at present. Armed with modular synths, keyboards, and a harp, the album was not a "message" per se. It was breathing room. The 17-and-a-half-minute finale, "Space 8," sounded almost like a brain at the precipice of sleep—or something much deeper, perhaps—with layers upon layers of tape noise and drones filling out the texture as Ahnansé's distant saxophone drifted through the void. Across that album, her employ of the harp earned comparisons with Alice Coltrane (see Journey in Satchidananda), and many others saw the music as an extension of ambient practices pioneered by artists like Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, Sam Wilkes or Harold Budd. But as flattering and well-meant as these comments might be, she doesn't take too kindly to the prospect of being known as "the harp lady," nor being defined as an "ambient" artist. Her work is bigger than these descriptions.

Endlessness certainly feels bigger. Where Space 1.8 was the opportunity to heal, Sinephro's sophomore album is more expansive in scope—"a deep dive into the cycle of existence… a celebration of life cycles and rebirth" as it's put in the press notes.  All the ideas form around an arpeggio that persists throughout the album's 10 tracks: a "continuum" that morphs through different timbres and riffs, withering and blooming as different parts take the spotlight. The harp makes the occasional feature here ("Continuum 3," "Continuum 4")—and these are beautiful moments, to be sure—but more generally it serves as nuance. Her engaging, kaleidoscopic instrumentation is fortified by a tight assembly of jazz stalwarts: Nubya Garcia, James Mollison and Sheila Maurice-Grey are stardust on the brass; beat science is rattled off by Natcyet Wakili and Morgan Simpson; Lyle Barton and Dwayne Kilvington rip synth solos and trace intimate piano figures in equal measure; sweeping string melodies unfurl courtesy of the 21-player ensemble, Orchestrate.

Many will still label this album ambient jazz (what else would you call it?), but that feels reductive. The same meditative, spiritual essence which set Sinephro apart in the first instance shimmers through the stiller moments, but when the energy peaks, it's ecstatic and euphoric—it commands you to listen. And listen you should. © Finn Kverndal/Qobuz