Alight is the second album by Tahmela Six, recorded outdoors on 15 August 2025 at Palmutsaari farm in Kiikala, on the open ground where the field meets the forest. No studio walls, no isolation booths; just the six players, the August afternoon, and whatever the day brought with it. Wind, insects, the warmth of the sun, the geometry of an open field: these are part of the record, not edited around it.
The choice was deliberate. Outdoor recording is often used as effect or curiosity, a layer added over music made elsewhere. On Alight the environment is the room. Sound travels differently when there are no walls returning it; distances stretch, dynamics open up, the players hear each other across space rather than within it. The record is less "recorded outside" than recorded together with a place.
The freedom that gives free jazz its name takes physical form here. The group improvises not only with each other but with the weather, the time of day, and the ambient life around the microphones. The listening reaches past what is played. The music moves between hush and full surge, between passages that almost dissolve into the field and collective swells that pull everything back in.
Four tracks span two sides of the LP. "Endless Summer Sun" opens across eleven minutes of late-summer heat, the horns finding their way slowly into the open. "Time and Again" follows as a shorter, more internal passage. The B-side begins with "Ground VI", released as a single on 30 April 2026, and closes with the fifteen-minute title track, which holds the whole arc of the day.
Alight is a place, a time, and a sound at once. Not constructed, not repeatable. It happened.
Personnel: Otto Eskelinen: alto sax, flute, shakuhachi. Sami Sippola: tenor sax. Eero Tikkanen: double bass. Eero Savela: trumpet. Janne Tuomi: drums, vibraphone. Topias Tiheäsalo: guitar. Recorded outdoors at Palmutsaari farm, Kiikala, on 15 August 2025. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Jarno Alho. Cover art by Stiina Kokko. Photography by Antti Kujala. Layout by Jon Thureson and Miiro Seppänen. Liner notes by J.K. Ihalainen. Lacquer cut by Timmion Cutting. Pressed by Helsingin Levypuristamo Oy. Released on Mustik Motel Music. Vinyl and digital, 21 May 2026
