Matthew Halsall unveils new band and announces ‘Salute to the Sun’ his new album on Gondwana Records

Matthew Halsall unveils his new band and announces “Salute to the Sun” his new album on Gondwana Records and shares his first single “Joyful Spirits of the Universe”. Matthew is a composer, trumpeter, producer, DJ and founder of Gondwana Records, His soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty and a composer and band-leader who has created his own rich sound world. A sound that draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own.

"Salute to the Sun" is his first album as a leader since “Into Forever” (2015) and marks the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester’s finest young musicians: Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion as well as long-time Halsall collaborator, bassist, Gavin Barras who has been at the heart of Halsall’s bands for over a decade. For Matthew it was important to have a band based locally and able, pre-Covid, to meet and play each week, and who also performed a sold-out monthly basement session at Yes in Manchester. The album draws energy from these sessions and inspiration from themes and ideas that have inspired Halsall through the years (on albums such as “Oneness”, “Fletcher Moss Park” and “When the World Was One”) ideas of ecology, the environment and harmony with nature.

Watch below a video to Matthew Halsall new song “Joyful Spirits of the Universe”, from his forthcoming new album “Salute to the Sun”: