Nala Sinephro - Space 1.8 (LP)

Some records feel like they arrived fully formed from a quiet corner of the universe. Space 1.8 is one of those, an album that glows rather than shouts. Nala Sinephro, a Caribbean‑Belgian composer and multi‑instrumentalist based in London, landed on Warp Records with a debut that sat comfortably alongside the UK jazz renaissance and the broader ambient world, yet didn’t sound beholden to either. It’s patient, tactile and oddly grounding, the sort of thing you reach for after midnight when the city has gone soft and the kettle is back on.

The premise is simple enough. Eight pieces, titled Space 1 through Space 8, unfold like a slow sequence of breaths. Sinephro’s pedal harp and modular synth set the tone, with a small circle of London players offering light touch support on reeds, double bass and drums. You hear it straight away on Space 1, where tones bloom and recede as if the room itself is breathing. By Space 2 the pulse thickens, still hushed but with low frequencies that quietly rearrange the air. It’s jazz in spirit, ambient in temperament, electronic in its sense of weightlessness.

Sinephro has spoken about tuning and frequencies that aid healing, and that intent seems to sit inside the music without becoming a gimmick. The tuning feels gentle on the ears, the harmonics roomy and inviting. There’s a sense of care in the way parts are placed. Nothing is crowded. Harp figures flicker like sunlight on the floorboards, synths hold long vowels, and the rhythm section leaves footprints rather than trenches. On Space 3 a reed voice hovers at the edge of speech, never tipping into showboating. Space 6 sneaks up on you as a kind of summit, a patient swell that stops short of the expected crescendo and instead settles back into the body like a deep breath released.

What makes Space 1.8 stick is how physical it feels. You could call it spiritual jazz or call it ambient minimalism, but those tags miss the small, human details. The scrape of a string. The slight wobble of a sine wave as it brushes a harmonic. The way a cymbal wash hangs just long enough to colour the next chord. It sounds close, like you’re in the room, yet it never loses that sense of wide, starry space. For anyone who spends time crate‑digging for ECM oddities or keeps Alice Coltrane and Brian Eno within reach of the turntable, this sits in that elusive pocket where calm doesn’t mean bland and serenity doesn’t mean sleepy.

The reception said as much. Critics were quick to rally around it, with Pitchfork granting Best New Music and UK papers praising the poise and focus of the writing. That attention felt earned, not hyped. Warp isn’t exactly known for putting out trad jazz, and Sinephro’s arrival there signalled a broader view of what the label’s experimental bent could mean in 2021. She didn’t need to push volume or tempo to feel exploratory. The experiment was in restraint, in making something that held the listener without resorting to obvious hooks.

On vinyl the record breathes even more. Space 1.8 vinyl carries a low‑end presence that rewards a proper setup, and the higher harmonics of the harp ride the groove with a clear, bell‑like ring. If you’re hunting for Nala Sinephro vinyl, this is the one that anchored her reputation, and it’s the kind of title you’re just as likely to spot on a Sunday afternoon at a Melbourne record store as you are to see filed under new jazz in London. For those of us in the habit of trawling for vinyl records Australia wide, it has become a quiet favourite, a go‑to recommendation for friends who think they don’t like jazz but love the feeling of a room settling. If you prefer to buy Nala Sinephro records online, Space 1.8 sits neatly among other Nala Sinephro albums on vinyl and tends to sell out for good reason.

What lingers after the needle lifts is the sense of care. The album feels made by someone attentive to how sound sits in the body, how a phrase can ease rather than agitate. It’s not background music, though it’s certainly music you can live with. Put it on while the rain rolls over the roof, or when the day’s picked up too much static, or when the house is sleeping and you want to keep the light low. Space 1.8 doesn’t demand focus. It invites it. And in a year crowded with noise, that invitation felt like a gift.