Matt Carmichael releases fourth album Held In The Dark and takes it out as a septet

Matt Carmichael released his fourth album Held In The Dark on October 21. Three shows follow next month with a full septet, including a set at London's Cecil Sharp House on 17 November as part of EFG London Jazz Festival.

The record leans on folk as much as jazz, built around what Carmichael calls songs without words: hymns, ballads, lullabies. He wrote it while caring for a loved one with complex, ongoing health challenges, and the first sketches came on guitar, an unusual instrument for a saxophonist. Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake and Big Thief were on the stereo during writing. Canadian songwriter Michelle Willis, now based in Scotland, co-produced, and pianist Fergus McCreadie and bassist Ali Watson both play, as they did on his 2021 debut Where Will The River Flow.

Carmichael was born in Inverness and moved to the outskirts of Glasgow at five or six. The album is out now. Nothing beyond the three septet shows is announced.