Following the international success of her debut album Karthago, Stockholm-based Italian bassist and composer Ilaria Capalbo is back with her most personal work to date.
Inspired by the deeply transformative experience of motherhood, The Brightest Sun marks a stylistic and evolutionary shift for Ilaria Capalbo. While rooted in the ”visionary and architectonic” bass playing that defines her sound, the new music has an experimental, explorative quality. Influences from free impro, modern jazz, rock, and indie music can be heard, all genres that have heavily shaped her background. It earnestly narrates the process of creation, moving fluidly between moments of chaotic energy as well as profound stillness. It is, in the artist’s words, as close to the source as can be.
“This album is a reflection on the radical shifts in identity and perspective that came when bringing new life into the world,” says Capalbo. “I wanted the music to feel immediate, with a sense of urgency about itself. I did not edit much and tried to keep the material as raw as possible. I composed the music in fragmented sessions while I was expecting or my child was very young, with radically different processes than those I employed for my previous works. Voice memos, sketches and post-it notes, all went into the making of this music. I wanted it to convey the vulnerability of a delicate and suspended time, which I remember as a landscape at the same time fractured and soaring.”
Indeed, the tendency to give her music different layers of meaning is a distinctive tract of the bass player. With her last work, Karthago (2022, Bluenord Records) she explored the theme of destruction and reconstruction by connecting it to the history on the ancient city Carthage and weaving it in with mythology, symbolism and literature.
A thoughtful bandleader, Ilaria is known for writing music with her musicians in mind. A handpicked cast of improvisers and composers, with whom she has collaborated in other projects as well, accompany her on her journey to the deep end of each territory she decides to explore.
"The band has over the years developed a strong synergy. The key to the centre of this music goes through each of us individually, and then as a whole. Much of the material on the new album is improvised. It is a privilege to share that intimate space, which feels at the very heart of the music, with these musicians."
The album’s sound is anchored by Capalbo’s evocative compositions and her summoning bass, the northern star of the ensemble. Her playing is counterpointed by Andreas Hourdakis’ iridescent guitar. Like Ilaria herself, he is from the mediterranean, which moves the balance of the ensemble towards melody and intensity. The piercing, expressive tenor sound of Fredrik Nordström, a fellow artist on Bluenord Records, compliments Thomas Backman’s fiery energy chingin texture in the alto sax and bass clarinet. Henrik Jäderberg’s imaginative, solid playing lays the bedrock for the band.
Released June 12, 2026
