Sun is the first album by Tennessee native and baritone saxophonist Zoh Amba for the Oslo-based imprint Smalltown Supersound – and her second album following 2022’s Oh Sun on Tzadik label.

On Sun, Amba introduces a newly assembled group with a set of compositions that blur the line between performance and process – where both the music and the act of capturing it unfold in real time, guided in part by improvisational recording techniques. As a bandleader, Amba navigates the edges of an improvisational delta, where spiritual jazz and free folk emerge not as separate genres, but as tributaries of the same current, each flowing from a shared belief in music as a sacred force.

The decision to release Sun on Smalltown Supersound was born from a common connection to the late German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, who was both a spiritual mentor to Amba and released several records on the label. And while the album is rooted in American folk traditions, it’s Brötzmann’s fearless spirit – itself an immense historical catalyst for European free jazz – that runs like a current through the ensemble’s musical collaboration and its experimental recording techniques.

For Amba however, it was important that the ensemble – consisting of Caroline Morton (bass), Lex Korton (piano), Miguel Marcel Russel (percussion) – establish deeper musical connection before the recording process took place: “We spent days just playing together, and I was trying to mentally take notes of what naturally wanted to exist in this band – before giving instructions or handing out sheet music. I wanted to see where we were all standing in life, right at that moment. From there, I started carving out the process with them. That’s how the structure of the band and the approach to the record came about.”

1. Fruit Gathering
2. Interbeing
3. Ma
4. Forevermore
5. Seaside
6. Champa Flower
7. At Noon
8. Like the Sun
9. In Heart