Youran is the latest project led by clarinetist and saxophonist Joachim Badenhorst. He brings together an idiosyncratic group of performers and musicians, with Tsubasa Hori on taiko and koto, Simon Jermyn on bass and guitar, Alistair Payne on trumpet, Nabou Claerhout on trombone, Rutger Zuydervelt on electronics, Liz Kosack on synthesisers, and Badenhorst on reeds and vocals. The project takes its name from the old Japanese word for "cradle," so it is fitting that a calming, lulling sense of dreamy imagination flows through the group's music. Their metamorphic form of jazz pulls from spiritual jazz predecessors and contemporaneous experimenters to envision a genre-traversing sound that is difficult to pin down: it moves across jazz, ambient, and indie motifs with curiosity and confidence. Their eponymous debut album fuses studio work with recordings from the medieval Laurenskerk, Rotterdam – forming a glimmering whole made from intriguing and distinct parts.

The presentation of this work was made possible thanks to the support of Flemish Arts Centre de Brakke Grond, STUK, and VierNulVier.