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Review Summary: finally the perfect reverie you deserve Endlessness is probably a perfect album: over ten pieces and a 45-minute runtime (perfect number, ideal length), Nala Sinephro cycles between timbres and intensities with such magnetic cohesion, straddling jazz, ambient, progressive electronic and New Age with such featherweight grace and textural sensitivity that she might as well have released the whole package as one unbroken track — we would have called it 'dazzling' and 'masterful' and counted it among the year's finest achievements, and her invitation for us to experience the record movement-by-movement only enhances its claim.
Sinephro builds on the cosmic shrapnel of her debut Space 1.8, reprising that record's chamber jazz arrangements and buzzing analogue synthlines, its New Age mystique (at the time packaged as ECM overtones) and its knack for gorgeous ambient expanse, all while furnishing the continuity that album's episodic tracklist so patently lacked — but Endlessness does not demand that context, or any, to stand as a great record. This album's draw is as simple and effortless as hearing each and every one of your intuitions for the possibilities of its palette spool out in real time: Sinephro flexes a vast imagination of pairings for her electronic and acoustic tones, be it the gentle interplay between a spiralling synth arps and her delicate harp performance that makes for one of the most exquisitely gorgeous tracks of the year ("Continuum 3"), or the effervescent rush of two contrasting aesthetics crackling against one another ("Continuum 6"). Every one of these unfolds so organically, maintaining such mystifying co-dependency with the rest of the record despite the myriad contours that set them apart. Seamless doesn't begin to cover it: Endlessness boasts a level of unity practically mythical for a record this set on exploring such a broad palette.
And what a spectacle she makes of it! The overture "Continuum 1" is dominated by grandiose string orchestrations (themselves synthesised, though you'll hardly know it), reprised throughout the album and reminiscent of those on contemp jazz touchstone Makaya McCraven's excellent In These Times (2022). However, where that album played as the composer cycling through the credit themes of his favourite exotic flicks, here Sinephro commits to a single vision and sees it through in singularly transportive form. This is pleasant enough – Endlessness is easily smooth and texturally pleasing enough to begin with – but her greatest accomplishment is the ease with which it conveys the sheer joy of authorship! It's all over the playful irreverence with which her electronic tones to clash so nakedly with her acoustic bedrock, the fresh-faced impatience with which she manipulates the tempo bar-by-bar (particularly in the album's central tracks), ratcheting it up one moment only for it to unwind the next as though per her whim. Every last one of its permutations teems with life and character, each nailing their mark and none overstaying their welcome. This goes for the record as a whole: by the time "Continuum 10" is done dissipating every formal trapping the rest of the record had built itself around in a heady act of fission, the daydream-ready whimsy that underpins the whole affair is left wondrously intact, long surviving the rest of the album like the glimpse of a distant nebula in a child's star-hungry retina. Reclaim this at your leisure; it's not going anywhere.
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Album Rating: 4.3
broke: yes morgan simpson from black midi plays on this and sounds great on this
woke: but only on the first track! natcyet wakili kills it on all the other tracks with percussion
bespoke: lol this is everything floating points ever dreamed of doing with jazz and *so* much more
wow i love this album and it has grown on me a lot from when i first heard it and is probably my joint fav thing of the year (along with alora crucible) thanks for the proof robertsona go check it out guys!
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passed on this because I expected mid-tier snooze-jazz but now you've got me hyped
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it's good, hey it's even very good at some points. But it lost me by the end. Still worth its while. Liked space 1.8 better, tho.
| | | Album Rating: 4.3
"expected mid-tier snooze-jazz"
tbh when I saw the tags and the flavour of rym hype, I expected the same (ie Promises 2), but this is much more imaginative + personable + straight-up pretty than that brief. hype!
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
love the album
also the first para for whatever reason read like the commentators on like competitive dog pageants "silky fur, glistens in the sunlight, look at her walking form, spectacular creature"
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
lfg album rules
| | | Album Rating: 4.4
Album is fantastic and i totally wanted to review this too. Very nice write-up my friend.
Collab review for the next chamber jazz album you rec me? I would be honored if you would approve such an endeavor
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
can i hop on that jazz collab?
| | | Album Rating: 4.2
>passed on this because I expected mid-tier snooze-jazz but now you've got me hyped
oh SHIT i also made this mistake on a RYM skim,,,,,,,,, amends incoming!
>also the first para for whatever reason read like the commentators on like competitive dog pageants "silky fur, glistens in the sunlight, look at her walking form, spectacular creature"
fucking lol. great review BUT where did the extra .7 disappear to within the confines of this probably perfect album?! scans as a 4.9
| | | Album Rating: 4.3
Paha I am ready for dog transfiguration to become the new food metaphor lfg
Re. score audit, hmmm good question — this grew up from a 3.7 for me, and I tend to focus v heavily on the positives + turn away from the factors that initially held it back when that happens. With a couple of exceptions, I didn't find this very immediate — it's gorgeous, sure, but a lot of it depends pretty heavily on picking out the right intricacies to focus on (the drums on the opener, the pacing of synthlines later on, etc.). I've warmed up to it enough now to enjoy it as a pure-vibes listen too, but ig it's still a slight caveat that the pacing and development are a bit oblique at points if you haven't clicked/aren't paying enough attention? This isn't in the review because I mainly blame myself for being a silly listener + wanted to keep it short, but there you are
Yes plz for future chamber/ambient jazz writes, mark this page
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During her teenage years, Sinephro developed a tumor in her jaw. The tumor's successful removal influenced a period of hedonistic living, with Sinephro frequenting Brussels-based clubs to seek out hardcore dance music.[4]
| | | Album Rating: 4.3
lol slay queen
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This fuckin rules
| | | Album Rating: 4.1
yeah this is loverly
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
A sizeable step up from her (good) debut.
I shall watch her career with great interest.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off
love the In These Times comparison — this album here and that album there are prob my favorite 2020s jazz releases if I'm being honest with myself. so glad you dug this as much as you did and did it mighty justice with this review.
and what do call this particular movement? new age-chamber-prog jazz?
| | | Album Rating: 4.3
thank you! not sure how strong my opinion on the best of current-decade jazz is, but those two are defs up near the top for me too (and maybe not my *fav*, but I thought Steve Lehman's alb last year was easily among the most impressive)
i'm not really sure re. tags! on her debut, I thought there were so many ECM vibes that the new age more or less folded into it via natural overlap, but it has a more distinct presence here? if I'm honest, I probably view this as a progressive electronic record first, chamber jazz second, but that doesn't pin it down clearly enough hmmm
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
check mary halvorson
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Only listened to it once but it was extremely good.
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Very, very into this album rn. The ambience, the strings, the percussion, the tastefully faded vocals, it’s all so damn good and works so well front to back without pause. With some recent hype letdowns, I rly needed something easy to listen to like this. Rn I’d say it rates at least a 9/10 on the dishwashing scale. Easily one of the best albums in recent memory to wash dishes to. So far I’ve cleared around 7 or 8 sinks filled with dishes and it’s been a calming and peaceful experience each time.
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