Fabienne Ambuehl | Convincing early-2025 highlight

‘New Ones,’ according to the description on YouTube ”imagines what possible alien life forms might think about the crazy times we are living in on our (small) planet. It is also a song about courage, fear, and the feeling of new beginnings.”

Fabienne Ambuehl surfaces
- Among ”the thrivers”
Fab 4 Feb foray
Track back to Glitterwoods

Fabienne Ambuehl surfaces

More convincing new sounds for early-2025 for your radar.

And there’s a chance to hear the thirtysomething Johannes Brahms & Brad Mehldau loving Fabienne Ambuehl at the Vortex too.

Ambuehl wrote the viscerally impactful ‘New Ones’ which is one of a brace from Thrive out in early-2025 streaming so far. Give the thought some latitude but there’s an ancient highways mystical Mari Boine like tang to the fervent vocal here.

Darius Brubeck bassist Matt Ridley co-produced the number with the singer-pianist-lyricist-bandleader who hails from Switzerland and lives in London.

Brubeck wrote a Live in Poland number for Ridley – the bassist on Thrive – called ‘Matt the Cat’

Among ”the thrivers”

Also in the Thrive personnel are breakthrough guitarist Tom Ollendorff and GoGo Penguin’s current drummer, known in the past for his work with the MOBO winning Kairos 4tet – Jon Scott plus a guest slot from Ensconced‘s Ant Law, last heard by this blog playing live in Soho with Henry Spencer.

The video was made at one of the singer’s ”favourite beaches” – she’s keeping the location of that one firmly under her hat.

For the jazz sleuths among us it probably occurred to some no matter how much she sells sea shells on the sea shore that landlocked Switzerland ain’t exactly noted for its beaches, now is it?

But the audio for the less littoral minded was recorded on firmer ground on the ever giving London clay that lies beneath Livingston Studios.

Fab’s lyrics are inspired by Emily Dickinson, D. H. Lawrence and others.

Fab 4 Feb foray

Out in mid-January on Ubuntu. As the Fab 4 (sans Law) – Fab with the O, Matt ”the Cat” and Scott – then play Dalston’s Vortex in Hackney on 6 February.

Track back to Glitterwoods

Ambuehl worked with bass titan Yuri Goloubev – known for his work with Gwilym Simcock – and drummer Asaf Sirkis, also a Simcockian who recorded with the pianist and Tim Garland on 2012 classic Lighthouse – on the Swiss jazzer’s 2015 album Glitterwoods which was issued by Berlin jazz indie Traumton.

Drawn from X-elle’s You Better Get Up (Altrisuoni) issued in 2009.

While a masters student in Lucerne (before further study in Copenhagen) Ambuehl also recorded as a member of the soul jazz octet X-elle among her earlier work. It’s the stirring luminescent pianism of her artistry that appeals to us most of all.

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