The New LoFi

Ten Years
Podcast
Merch
Menu
×


illo.trio’s second album creates a sound in search of new ground

illo.trio describe their music as “non-jazz” music. In some ways, this is true; their music builds around a foundation of traditional jazz arrangements but uses elements of electronic music, minimalism, neoclassical influences to subvert and evolve their sound.

Founded in 2020 by pianist and composer, Nikolai Khomenko, along with bassist Alexey Bausin and drummer Viktor Kulish, the band released their self-titled debut album in 2024. Their second air jordan 13 retro black flint album, “Wandering,” was recorded in the spring and summer of 2025, in the period leading up to the band’s European tour.

Wandering is a sonic journey through 10 tracks that feels cinematic and narrative driven. At its core, the trio’s restrained acoustic language remains present, but it’s continually reframed by glowing electronics, subtle manipulations, and textures that feel both deliberate and slightly untethered.

There’s a quiet tension running throughout the record: precision meets drift, familiarity bends toward the unknown. The music never rushes to resolve itself. Instead, it lingers, allowing space for ideas to breathe, collide, and transform.

More than a collection of tracks, Wandering feels like an open door. It invites listeners to sit with uncertainty, to follow sound wherever it leads, and to experience jazz not as a fixed form, but as a living, evolving process — intimate one moment, expansive the next.

Steam Wandering below. My favorite tracks are “Music from Videogame,” “What,” and the title track, “Wandering.” If you like what you hear, head over to the illo.trio’s Bandcamp page to buy your copy of the album.

Cover photo was made in Elbrus by Alexander Murzakov. This phenomen is called a lenticular cloud.