One to watch - Nala Sinephro

The Guardian 0

This inspired jazz harpist takes on the universe with a joyous and deeply restorative debut album

You might have believed that Promises, the extraordinary ambient jazz album by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the LSO, would have had few rivals this year. But a contender has emerged.

The debut album by the London-based composer and harpist Nala Sinephro reaches elegiac heights – and tissue-penetrating depths. Space 1.8 (out via Warp) is a healing sound bath full of rigorous psychoacoustic knowledge and elegant playing. It combines live instruments by notable names in the UK’s young jazz scene (percussion by Sons of Kemet’s Edward Wakili-Hick, for instance) with modular synths and multilayered audio processing by Sinephro, adding an otherworldly thrum.

Space 1.8 is released on 3 September. Nala Sinephro plays St Matthias church, London N16 on Friday 10 September; tickets here