Entering
This week’s list is 147 songs. As I went through them one by one by release date, oddly the same date kept coming up: Friday, September 11. Bonobo’s new album, the Nigerian 1980s compilation assembled by Strut, Haruomi Hosono’s first new work in over seven years, and Saigon Soul Revival’s third album all came out that day. Which is to say London, Lagos, Tokyo and Ho Chi Minh City all released records on the same Friday.
So this time I laid the songs out by city. The order starts in the UK, passes through Africa and continental Europe into Asia, then goes through Oceania and South America and ends in North America. I picked twenty-six songs, and for each I wrote down who made it, where, and with whom. As I wrote, I found a person hanging between one city and the next. The person who played flute on a Melbourne band’s album is also a member of a Brooklyn band, and a Glasgow trombonist and a Brighton-born producer are on the same label. Let’s follow those lines.
United Kingdom
London — Ezra Collective, 「Someday」
A London five-piece led by drummer Femi Koleoso. In 2023 they won the Mercury Prize with [Where I’m Meant to Be] — the first jazz act to do so. In 2025 they also took Group of the Year at the BRIT Awards. They need no introduction, but this fourth studio album [Here Because of Hope] came out on Partisan and runs 17 tracks. 「Someday」 is track 6. Pa Salieu, Lila Iké and Leona Lewis appear across the album, and actor Letitia Wright reads three narration interludes. This song has no guest. The webzine When The Horn Blows described it as a track blending organ, guitar, horns and piano. 「El Corazón」 and 「Black Flag」 from the same album are also on the list.
Glasgow — corto.alto, 「SOMETHING」 (feat. BINA.)
corto.alto is the name of Glasgow trombonist, bassist and producer Liam Shortall. In 2024 [Bad With Names] was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. [SOME SMALL FORTUNE], released September 4 on Ninja Tune, was made at his home studio in Glasgow, with fellow Glasgow jazz players Fergus McCreadie and Graham Costello joining in. 「SOMETHING」 is track 14, sung by South London R&B singer BINA. Three more songs from this album are on the list: 「PRAYED WE WOULD」 featuring London guitarist Oscar Jerome; the closing track 「NOBLEHILL」 sung by Jacob Alon, a Fife native who won the 2026 BRIT Awards Critics’ Choice; and the guest-free 「TEMPLE」. In an interview Shortall said he wanted to properly collaborate with musicians he loves, and didn’t want to be a control freak. The tracklist is built exactly as he said.
Brighton → LA — Bonobo, 「Youth’s Fountain」 (feat. Nilüfer Yanya)
Bonobo is Simon Green, born in Brighton and now living in LA. On the same Ninja Tune label as corto.alto, he released his eighth album [Distance in Static] on September 11. It was recorded in LA, Tokyo and London, including at Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch. The participants named by the label include Arooj Aftab, Joy Crookes and Ichiko Aoba. 「Youth’s Fountain」 is track 8, sung by Nilüfer Yanya, a singer-songwriter who grew up in Chelsea, London. 「Mercury」 and 「Uncasually」 from the same album are also on the list. It’s an album released exactly one week after corto.alto’s, on the same label.
Manchester label — Jack Wyllie, 「Magazine」
Jack Wyllie is a founding member of Portico Quartet, formed in London in 2005. His first proper solo album under his own name, [Eternal Spring], came out September 11 on Manchester’s Gondwana Records. The Spotify credits also list Duncan Bellamy and Milo Fitzpatrick, both longtime bandmates of Wyllie in Portico Quartet. Pianist Hania Rani also took part. 「Magazine」 is track 3. All About Jazz called it a string rondo and was reminded of the Michael Nyman Band of the 1980s. Old friends who’ve played together for years standing side by side in the credits of the leader’s first solo work — that’s introduction enough for this song.
Africa
Lagos, 1980s — Stella Monye, 「Oke Mi Ye」
A track from [Nigeria 80], the compilation Strut Records released September 11. It’s the follow-up to 2001’s [Nigeria 70], and the label says all 13 songs are reissued for the first time. Victor Uwaifo, Prince Nico Mbarga and Segun Adewale are on the same record. Stella Monye is a Nigerian singer nicknamed the ‘Samba Queen,’ and her first label was EMI. According to an interview with the Nigerian daily ThisDay, she wrote this song while studying theatre at the University of Ife. Biographical sources spell the title 「Oko Mi Ye」, but this compilation lists it as 「Oke Mi Ye」. The year of the original varies across sources — 1982, 1983, 1984 — so here I’ll just say the early-to-mid 1980s. Strut introduced the album as unearthing a decade that was abundant, restless and creative. A song from over forty years ago sits among this year’s new releases.
Durban·Johannesburg — Nasty C × Tellaman, 「Natural」
Rapper Nasty C, born in Soweto and raised in Durban, and Durban singer Tellaman have released songs together several times since 2019’s 「Whipped」. At the end of that road came their first joint album [T’s & C’s Apply] on September 1. It has 17 tracks, released independently by Nasty C’s label Tall Racks and Tellaman’s Select Play. 「Natural」 is an advance single from August 4 and track 6 on the album. South African hip-hop media called it a softer, more R&B-leaning sound, and the two called it a cozy album to listen to in winter. Lusanda, the Johannesburg R&B singer who guested on this album, released her own EP [By The Time I Wake Up] on September 11, and its closing track 「Lunchbox」 is also on this list. Anoop D’Souza, who has made songs for Tems and Summer Walker, is the producer. A singer who lent her voice to her seniors’ album released a song under her own name the same month.
Johannesburg — Bokani Dyer, 「Thembisa」 (feat. Phoebe Mgxaji)
Bokani Dyer is a pianist born in Gaborone, Botswana and raised in Johannesburg. He studied jazz at the University of Cape Town and was named a Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz in 2011. 「Thembisa」 is a newly reinterpreted song for the album [Traditions], due October 1. The album centers on re-singing old songs of South African music, and its opening track is Nofinishi Dywili’s 「Inxembula」. Lumanyano Mzi is on drums and Tim Norton on bass. Vocalist Phoebe Mgxaji is a singer Dyer met while teaching at the University of the Witwatersrand. In an interview Dyer said he strives to keep integrity within art. To an album that re-sings old songs, he brought a voice he met in the classroom.
Continental Europe
Berlin × Budapest — Àbáse, 「Búsulni Nem Tudtam / Learning Sorrow」 (with Kacsó Hanga)
Àbáse is Szabolcs Bognár, a Hungarian keyboardist and producer who grew up in Budapest and works in Berlin. He made his debut [Laroyê] on a 2017 trip to Brazil, and has played keys for Wayne Snow and Dele Sosimi. This time the place he looked back to is his own country. The title of his album [Nefelejcs], due November 6 on Oshu Records, means forget-me-not in Hungarian — the flower his late mother loved most. Kacsó Hanga, who sings, studied at the Liszt Academy and has been a singer with the Hungarian folk group Muzsikás since 2016. Berlin-based players Petter Eldh, Otis Sandsjö and Silvan Strauss recorded together. 「Fekete Szem / Black Eye」, an earlier song by the same lineup, is also on the list. The person who made his first album in Brazil this time gave his album the name of the flower his mother loved.
Gothenburg × Stockholm — Yukimi, 「Vann du livet?」 (with Dina Ögon, Little Dragon)
Yukimi Nagano is the vocalist of Little Dragon, formed in Gothenburg in 1996. She released her first solo album [For You] in March 2025, and put out this single September 11 on Playground Music. According to the Swedish music industry publication Musikindustrin, it’s the first song she has sung in Swedish. Dina Ögon, who joined her, is a band formed in Stockholm in 2020 and on the same Playground label. Yukimi told a Swedish outlet that she felt like she’d discovered a completely new voice. Stereofox wrote that the harmonies drifting behind lift the weight. Someone who has long sung with Little Dragon sang in Swedish for the first time, with a younger Stockholm band beside her.
Tallinn → Madeira — Misha Panfilov, 「Away We Drove」
Estonian-born and now living in Portugal, Misha Panfilov has released records under many names — Septet, Sound Combo, Estrada Orchestra. His new album [Where the Birds Fly] has six tracks and came out on Funk Night Records, his longtime home. 「Away We Drove」 is track 5. Panfilov handles piano, lap steel, harmonium and mellotron, with Joe Harvey-Whyte of The Hanging Stars and woodwind player Ilja Gussarov, also of Sound Combo, taking part. The label named dreamlike woodwinds, springy lap steel and wordless vocals as the album’s ingredients. He has also worked with Tomo Katsurada, formerly of Kikagaku Moyo. The album title of a man who moved from the Baltic Sea to an Atlantic island is ‘where the birds fly.’
Asia
Ho Chi Minh City — Saigon Soul Revival, 「Tình Điên」
A band formed in Ho Chi Minh City in 2016, reviving the pre-1975 popular music of Saigon as today’s soul and rock. [Chốn Ta Về], released September 11 on Saigon Supersound, means ‘the place we return to.’ Jan Hagenkötter, who made their earlier albums with them, produced again, and the whole thing was recorded analog. 「Tình Điên」 was written and sung by vocalist Nguyễn Anh Minh. The Vietnamese daily Tuoi Tre ran a headline saying the album mixed the t’rưng and bamboo flute with soul and rock. Their music was used in the HBO drama [The Sympathizer]. A band of this city today is taking up and singing this city’s songs from half a century ago.
Tokyo — Haruomi Hosono, 「Figlio Perduto」
Haruomi Hosono, who created Happy End and Yellow Magic Orchestra, released his twenty-third studio album [Yours Sincerely] on September 11. Ghostly International handled it overseas and Sony Music in Japan, and Bandcamp introduced it as new work after more than seven years without new music. 「Figlio Perduto」 is track 9. Bandcamp Daily wrote that Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 is woven into this song as a ringtone. Hosono wrote in the album’s introduction: now seventy-eight, but from here his curiosity toward music he doesn’t yet know is growing. He performs with Toro y Moi at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on September 16 and LA’s Greek Theatre on the 20th.
Tokyo — Orisaka Yuta, 「シミレ」 (feat. Satoko Shibata)
A digital single released September 9. The song was written by Orisaka, and the lyrics were written by Orisaka and Satoko Shibata together. The cover is a collage Orisaka tore and pasted himself. This song is the theme for director Shuichi Okita’s film 『さとこはいつも』, which opens September 18. Satoko Shibata handled all the film’s music. Over a single film, two singer-songwriters met — one as music director, one as theme-song composer — and ended up singing together within one song. Orisaka said he wanted to leave this song as a comma rather than an ending. He holds band-format shows in Tokyo on October 25 and Osaka on the 31st.
Seoul — LE SSERAFIM, 「Made My Night」 (feat. EJAE)
The EJAE version of LE SSERAFIM’s single 「Made My Night」 was released September 14. The original came out a few days earlier, a separate single from the second full-length [Pureflow Pt. 1] released in May. EJAE voiced Rumi’s singing in [KPop Demon Hunters] and won the 2026 Golden Globe and Grammy for the in-film song 「Golden」. She spent over ten years as a trainee at SM and is also a songwriter who wrote Red Velvet’s 「Psycho」 and LE SSERAFIM’s 「So Cynical (Badum)」. In this version LE SSERAFIM sings the first verse and EJAE the second. EJAE personally added a passage in the second verse’s lyrics pointing to 「FEARLESS」, 「ANTIFRAGILE」 and 「CRAZY」. Someone who used to write songs for this group this time entered the group’s own song in her own voice.
Margate × Manila — Thandii × Jun Regalado, 「Future Lover」
Thandii is a duo of Jess Berry and Graham Godfrey, Godfrey being of Filipino descent. Jun Regalado is a player in his late seventies, called the most-recorded drummer in the Philippines, who has drummed on hundreds of albums. His 「Pinoy Funk」 was included on Soundway’s 2024 compilation [Ayo Ke Disco]. [Coco Okayo], made by the two together, came out September 11 on Sama Sama Records. The name the two coined is ‘MAR-NILA,’ combining Margate and the 1970s Manila Sound. 「Future Lover」 is A-side track 3, and the song right before it, 「Run Run」, is also on the list. The label said this is the first time Regalado has worked with a musician outside his contemporaries. A British duo with a Filipino-descent musician and a Manila drummer in his late seventies put their names side by side on one album.
Oceania
Melbourne — Surprise Chef, 「Outside Voice」
A band where three members live together in a house in Coburg, Melbourne and set up an analog studio in that house. Guitarist Lachlan Stuckey and keyboardist Jethro Curtin also co-founded the label College of Knowledge. 「Outside Voice」 is a double single paired with 「Inside Voice」, and track 2 on [Frogs In A Pond], due October 23 on Concord Jazz. It’s their first record on this label. They recorded almost live over nine days, drawing inspiration from Italian giallo film music like Piero Umiliani. The person who played flute across the whole album is Leon Michels. That name appears once more in the North America chapter. The band said they originally wrote the two songs as one, and that 「Inside Voice」 works like the theme of a film’s opening sequence.
Melbourne — Karate Boogaloo, 「Down Home」
A band tightly intertwined with Surprise Chef by its people. A four-piece that met in high school and started as a cover band for The Meters and Booker T. & the M.G.’s, they hold down the rhythm section in Melbourne’s The Cactus Channel. Bassist Henry Jenkins is Surprise Chef’s longtime producer and engineer, and drummer Hudson Whitlock also took part in Surprise Chef’s new album. In 2019 the two bands released a split 7-inch on College of Knowledge. 「Down Home」 is an advance track from [Access All Areas], due October 9 from Ohio’s Colemine Records together with College of Knowledge, and 「Tremendous Fantastic」, released alongside it, is also on the list. The band wrote and produced it together, Henry Jenkins mixed, and Alex Bennet engineered, recording to Ampex 440 4-track tape. One blog wrote it’s half [Shaft], half a shady 1970s detective show.
Melbourne × London — The Avalanches, 「Every Single Weekend」 (feat. Jamie xx)
A Melbourne act that builds albums from sampling. On Spotify this song sits under the 「Far Away」 single bundle, but it was originally a single released earlier in early June, and track 5 on the new album [No Bad Memories], due October 16 on Modular. They worked with Jamie xx before, on 2024’s 「All You Children」. The band said Jamie xx’s album [In Colour] reignited their passion for sampling, and that this song is about forgetting and letting go of the nine-to-six grind. The new album’s participants include Karen O, Mike Patton, Panda Bear, Carly Simon — and Haruomi Hosono. The name from the Tokyo chapter.
Latin America
Bahia → São Paulo — Gilberto Gil, 「Luar (A gente precisa ver o Luar)」 (Ao Vivo em São Paulo)
Gilberto Gil’s farewell tour ‘Tempo Rei’ is being preserved as concert recordings. The first volume came out June 26, on his birthday, and [Tempo Rei, Vol. 3 (Ao Vivo)], the third of the four-volume series, came out September 7. It has eight songs, and 「Luar」 is track 2, a São Paulo concert recording. The original was on the 1981 album of the same title. The final volume and a four-LP box come in November. The first volume includes 「Cálice」, sung with Chico Buarque. A man stepping down from the stage sang a song from 45 years ago before a São Paulo audience, and that recording is coming out one volume at a time. A series that shows how Brazil sends off its own master.
Rio — Joyce Moreno, 「Aldeia De Ogum」
Joyce Moreno newly recorded a song that had been track 9 on the 1980 album [Feminina]. It’s not a reissue. It came out as a single September 11 and goes on the new album [Never Too Soon], due October 30 on London’s Far Out Recordings. The producers are Joyce and her husband, drummer Tutty Moreno. The horn arrangement was done by Nailor Proveta, and guitarist Toninho Horta of Minas Gerais also took part in the album. A song she’d put on her own album 46 years ago, this time she produced with her husband and released again on a London label.
Bahia — Fatel × Ivan Sacerdote, 「Cobra Coral」
Fatel is a singer-songwriter from Juazeiro, a city along the São Francisco River in Bahia, who has worked with Zé Manoel and Tom Zé. His new album [RASANTE], out in late July, has ten songs, produced by Fatel and Tarcísio Santos. 「Cobra Coral」 is track 4, a re-singing of a song by Waly Salomão and Caetano Veloso. Ivan Sacerdote, who plays clarinet, is a player born in Rio who lived in Salvador from age fourteen, and in 2020 made a duo album with Caetano Veloso. At that time Caetano said everyone was charmed by the sweetness of his sound. Fatel said this album doesn’t describe the sertão but tries to sing Brazil from within it.
Brasília × Recife — Saci Wèrè, 「Tempo bom」 (with Martins)
Saci Wèrè is a seven-piece from Brasília, mixing MPB, ijexá and tropicália. Their second album [Pra Ninar o Fim do Mundo] means ‘to lull the end of the world to sleep’ and holds eight songs. Samuel Mota handled production, mix and mastering, and it was made with the culture fund of the Federal District of Brasília. 「Tempo bom」 features Martins, a singer-songwriter born in Recife in 1990. Ney Matogrosso, Simone and Daniela Mercury have sung his songs. Member Chris Barea said the song came out of a jam, and that because the sound was easy and sea-like, they improvised a story of boats and rowing onto it. 「Three Views of a Secret」 by Jaco Pastorius, played by fellow Brasília bassist Oswaldo Amorim with his colleagues, is also on this list.
North America
Brooklyn × Rio — Menahan Street Band, 「Palace of Illusions」 (with Arthur Verocai)
Menahan Street Band, formed in Brooklyn in 2007, has Tommy Brenneck, Dave Guy, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon and Homer Steinweiss as members, and was Charles Bradley’s backing band. That Leon Michels, who played flute on the Surprise Chef album in the Oceania chapter, is here. 「Palace of Illusions」 is the opening track of [Illusions], due November 13 on Diamond West Records, and Arthur Verocai — the Rio arranger known for his 1972 self-titled album — wrote the string arrangement. Brenneck produces. Brenneck said the combination of Verocai’s arrangement and the band’s horn melodies was a complete dream for him. I placed this song as the bridge from Latin America to North America.
LA × Montreal — Kiefer, 「BusyForYa」 (feat. Planet Giza, Shibo)
Kiefer Shackelford, a pianist and producer raised in San Diego and active in LA, studied under guitarist Kenny Burrell at UCLA. He passed through Stones Throw and moved to Blue Note, and his first album after the move, [Memory Bomb], comes out September 25. 「BusyForYa」 is a single released September 11. Montreal hip-hop trio Planet Giza raps, and guitarist Shibo — Kiefer’s close friend who opens his tours — takes part. The producers are Kiefer, Shibo and CARRTOONS. CARRTOONS also has a name on Mac Ayres’s 「Please Come Home」 on this list. Stereofox called it smooth, sensual jazz-soul.
Brooklyn × Philadelphia — Standing On The Corner, 「Sonia」 (with Sonia Sanchez, Solange)
A Brooklyn collective led by Gio Escobar. In 2019 they took part in producing and writing six songs on Solange’s [When I Get Home]. [Standing On The Corner “II”], officially released September 11 on XL Recordings, was originally sold as a DVD in Times Square on September 11, 2025. 「Sonia」 is track 13. The person it’s named for is poet Sonia Sanchez, born in Birmingham, who was at the center of the Black Arts Movement and served as Philadelphia’s first poet laureate. According to SPIN, in the version posted earlier to YouTube Sanchez remained, while Solange this time filled the spot held by Big Shug. The poet’s voice and the voice of the singer whose album this band worked on are in the same song.
Philadelphia × LA — Christian McBride & Ursa Major, 「No Rhyme, No Reason」
Bassist Christian McBride, who passed through Philadelphia’s arts high school and Juilliard, has won several Grammys. His band Ursa Major releases [Points of Light] on October 30 on Mack Avenue. Saxophonist Nicole Glover, guitarist Ely Perlman, pianist Mike King and drummer Savannah Harris are the members. 「No Rhyme, No Reason」 is a re-performance of George Duke’s 1992 single, the only cover on the album. The producer is LA’s Terrace Martin. The jazz blog marlbank wrote that Martin added Oberheim, Minimoog and vocoder, moving the song toward electronic sound. A bassist from Philadelphia paying respects to George Duke by way of an LA producer’s hand.
Closing
Laying twenty-six songs out by city, a few lines remained. Leon Michels, who played flute on an album recorded in a house in Coburg, Melbourne, recorded a song in Brooklyn where a Rio arranger wrote the strings. Tokyo’s Haruomi Hosono, apart from his own new work, also has his name among the participants on the Melbourne act’s new album. Lusanda, who lent her voice to the album by the two Durban seniors, released her own EP the same month, and the Johannesburg pianist brought his student in as vocalist on his album.
This order is just the order the editors decided. Shuffle the list and Ho Chi Minh City comes after Lagos, and Glasgow after Brasília. That order is for the listener to decide.
Next week’s list — I don’t know which cities will be tied to the same date again.