Epiblast by Naná Rizinni

For fans of Black Country, New Road, Yes, Squarepusher, hard bop, and those months when you seemingly get the best and worst news of your life all at once, Epiblast by Naná Rizinni explores the creation and loss of life through a maximalist and heavily electronic jazz fusion style. As the author’s life flooded with impactful events, from the birth of a child to the loss of a sibling, the complicated emotional landscape we find here took shape, its driving drums, anthemic melodies, and soothing synths indicating a measured resignation to the unstoppable forces of change. In the most tense and frantic moments, synths largely take over with support from an increasingly active drum kit, with tightly cycling melodies indicating this kinetic energy as pent-up and stationary. Once we recognize the forces of time outside of our control and learn to coexist with the best and worst of beginnings and ends, we find a new peace, one riddled with nuance and the occasional wild melody but still overall governed by a sense of peace and recognition.