Emma Rawicz - Inkyra

Inkyra is Emma Rawicz's most personal record yet, her third album for ACT and the one where a saxophonist who's been called a prodigy since her teens stops sounding like she's proving anything and just plays. Rawicz picked up jazz at fifteen after a childhood steeped in folk and classical music, had her first tenor sax a year later, and released her debut Incantation at just nineteen to real acclaim, Jamie Cullum among the early voices calling her an astonishing talent. This record, produced by Rawicz herself and co-produced with guitarist David Preston, pulls together an ensemble built for genuine texture, Gareth Lockrane's flute family, Preston's guitar, Scottie Thompson's Rhodes and Prophet synth, giving her compositions a widescreen, dynamic quality that goes well beyond straightforward sax-led jazz. Earthrise opens the record on the kind of expansive, patient scale the whole album commits to. Particles of Change carries real forward motion, the full band pushing together rather than trading solos in sequence. Anima Rising is the record's most emotionally direct statement, and A Long Goodbye closes the album on something reflective rather than resolved. Still in her early twenties and already on her third acclaimed album. Inkyra is the sound of that early promise fully delivered on rather than just hinted at. Tracklist Earthrise Particles of Change Time, and Other Thieves A Portrait of Today Lunar Moondrawn Anima Rising All My Yellow Afternoons Marshmallow Tree A Long Goodbye