POSY - The Garden LP

Emerging from the rainy environs of the Pacific Northwest, POSY makes his full length debut on Bastard Jazz with The Garden, a lush, organic soundscape providing all the tranquility and sonic nourishment the title implies. 

The multi-instrumentalist orchestrated and played most of the parts that comprise the album, using analog gear and a traditional recording studio set-up to cultivate the pervasive warmth and rich sound that characterizes The Garden. And speaking of that title: it’s not just an apt metaphor, but a very real place of tranquility where POSY retreated to get over writer’s block while working on the project, recording voice notes to himself on guitar that he reworked and embellished in the studio. 

While tapped into the same well of musical depth that contemporary new jazz artists like Alfa Mist and Shabaka Hutchings draw from, the classically trained POSY approaches things from a different angle, painting detailed miniature portraits that avoid the overt spiritual jazz trappings of many of his contemporaries. “I love what Yuseff Dayes and KIEFER are doing,” POSY states, naming a couple peers who’ve inspired him. But while improvisation and a comfortable familiarity with theory may be at the compositional root of the ten tracks here, it’s always in the service to the concise form of songs that say just enough, and nothing more.

Opening with the pensive, impossibly lush, string and harp -filled “Haru,” the album’s first standout (and first single) “All The Time” follows, introducing the voice of Tien Viet Nguyen to the sound palette. Nguyen, also known as SAÍGO, is a perfect fit for the quiet persuasiveness of the track, built on an earworm start-and-stop guitar riff that seems to resolve only to reflect back on itself and continue on, timeless. “Reflecting Light” takes the same start-stop concept in another direction, leaning into unapologetic smooth jazz that evokes Earl Klugh and Grover Washington, Jr. courtesy of BrandonLee Cierley’s sax work. 

Originally released digitally in the summer of 2023, “Netami” bumps the drums up a little — a throwback of sorts to POSY’s earlier, more Nujabes/Dilla influenced beats — but is of a piece with the rest of the album, sliding easily into the mellow flute funk (courtesy Seb Zillner) of “Mount Yufu.” The vocal cut “Dreaming In Blue” features the emotive, soulful voice of Milan-based singer and songwriter Jennyfire, counterbalancing the steady, guitar-led downtempo R&B pulse of POSY’s track with a restrained, slow burn of a lyric. 

While it would be easy to continue to break down the tracks individually (the twisting unison melody line of “Toki,” the drumless reverie of “Peace Lily”), it is probably counter to the idea of The Garden as a whole. There are a multitude of flowers within, but the effect is really gained only by immersion in the album as a space to be entered and enjoyed, greater than the sum of its parts.