Label: Self released, 2025

Personnel - Julius Van Rhee: alto saxophone; Victor Fox: tenor saxophone; Leandro Irarragorri: piano; Calvin Lennig: bass; Finn Wiest: drums.

By listening to Aurora, the debut album by Finn Wiest, a German-born, Brooklyn-based young drummer, one immediately sense that he and his band are unafraid to take risks. The album features one composition by each member of Wiest’s working quintet, which includes saxophonists Julius Van Rhee and Victor Fox, pianist Leandro Irarragorri, and bassist Calvin Lennig.

The predominant contemporary vibes and urban feel are promptly felt in Lennig’s “Old Kid”, which opens the album with soulful, horn-driven intensity. The piece is masterfully crafted with a magnetic rhythmic drive, well-placed accents, creative melodic expression, and absorbing solos by Van Rhee and Fox. Irarragori’s “Aurora” exhibits a natural flow and relaxed confidence, even with odd meter and shifting cadences.

Wiest’s “Waltz” remains constantly in motion, offering an ear-pleasing journey elevated by Irarragorri’s imaginative harmonic construction while comping his own solo. The group digs in with enthusiasm on Fox’s “Giga”, performed with intense focus while following an eager melodic trajectory. It’s an uptempo burner adorned with interesting intervallic leaps and colored with avant-garde abstraction, yet it never relinquishes its kinetic zest for long.

The album closes with Van Rhee’s “Zu Viel”, a structurally perceptive and thematically persuasive piece that adopts a pronounced Latin tinge after a tenor sax solo marked by motivic sensibility.

Though short on tracks, Aurora is an album (or should we call it an EP?) where nothing unfolds predictably — and I mean that in the best possible way. We can only hope Wiest has more in the pipeline for his sophomore album as a leader.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Old Kid ► 04 - Giga ► 05 - Zu Viel