about the record

Swiss trombonist and composer Andreas Tschopp marries contemporary jazz with South African horns and homemade ocarinas on What if We Align Our Breath, disregarding the curvature of borders, genre, and time itself while tugging a thread through the history of wind instrumentation with ghostly agility.

At the heart of the record lie spiraling, bonelike kudu horns, which have lent their stirring calls to Indigenous South African rituals and signaling systems for millennia. Tschopp clusters, harmonizes, and stretches their sound through extended techniques, coaxing an array of melancholy and playful voices throughout the album.

Flourishes of trombone and alpine flutes are joined by Shane Cooper on double bass, Ben LaMar Gay on cornet, Gontse Makhene on udu drums, and Koleka Putuma on spoken word, bringing groove, countermelody, and a sense of earthy introspection to the record. A sighing tapestry of brass, clay, and bone, the music hints at a preconscious connectedness, tracing figures that rejoice, exhale, and embrace outside of time.