Closer is an album rooted deep in a feeling that overcame Maria Chiara Argirò. “I was really locked in with this feeling and I was like: I need to make this record now,” she says. It’s not an obvious or easily describable feeling that was bubbling away inside Argirò though. “A dreamlike feeling in motion,” she explains. “A feeling that we cannot describe, a dream I’m sort of walking through.”

However, despite being rooted in something indescribable or definable, Argirò set about making this record with a laser focus on what she wanted to do. “I had a clarity for this record that I didn't have for others,” she says. “I just knew what I wanted – from the production to where I wanted a trumpet solo. We didn’t experiment a lot with this record because I just knew what to do. This might be a once in a lifetime thing to happen.”

A once in a lifetime occurrence or moment of perfectly crystalised creative vision, perhaps, but you could also argue that Closer is the natural evolutionary by-product of a highly skilled, nuanced and ambitious artist who is able to trust their intuition to create something singular. Argirò has been a central figure in the UK jazz, classical and electronic worlds since she moved to London from Rome over a decade ago.

A skilled pianist since childhood, she’s collaborated with everyone from These New Puritans to Jono McCleery to Jamie Leeming alongside output with Moonfish. Her previous solo album, the stunning electronic jazz-fusion record Forest City, received widespread critical acclaim and was covered by the likes of The Guardian, Pitchfork, Vogue, and Rolling Stone. Her music has featured in the Netflix series, Elite, and she can count the likes of Four Tet and Gilles Peterson as fans, with the latter describing her music as “absolutely crazy good”.

Tracklist:
Light
Closer
Grow
September
Time
Koala
Sun
Game
Air
Floating