Under The Surface
Alchemy Sound Project
(Artists Recording Collective)
July 24, 2025

A shadowy path leads us through this music. Not a wide paved road. No, ‘Under The Surface,’ the new album by the ALCHEMY SOUND PROJECT, is a path through the undergrowth. A place where ideas take root, thoughts branch out, rhythms feed off each other, and sound pulsates like moist soil beneath our feet. At the center of this web stands Sumi Tonooka – composer, pianist, and storyteller.

For decades, Sumi Tonooka has moved confidently between genres and generations, sometimes in a trio, sometimes in symphonic expanses, but always with an unmistakable melodic voice. With ‘Under The Surface’, she now presents a work that is not just music, but a concept of life. The suite is inspired by the root network of trees, the “Wood Wide Web,” the natural mycorrhizal structure that connects trees underground. And that’s exactly how this music works. The ALCHEMY SOUND PROJECT is a musical community, a gathering of like-minded individuals, an intergenerational sound collective shaped as much by its members as by Sumi Tonooka’s signature. Alongside her are Gregg August (bass), Johnathan Blake (drums), Erica Lindsay (tenor saxophone), Salim Washington (multi-reeds), Samantha Boshnack (trumpet), and Michael Ventoso (trombone). Each musician in this community possesses a distinctive sound, an individual tone, yet one that is always embedded in the overall organism.

The suite experiences a rhythmic awakening with ‘Points Of Departure’. Carried by the skilled drumming, Sumi Tonooka’s piano playing explores the way forward in a jazzy, groping forward through the thicket. ‘Savour’, in turn, sounds like a dialogic dance between trio and ensemble, between past and present, full of historical undercurrents, but never nostalgic. The eleven-minute ‘Interval Haiku’ then circles like tree rings in wood. The horns begin with a dissonant fanfare, the trumpet radiates with open, searching warmth, and the saxophone follows with a solo between heaven and earth. With ‘Tear Bright’, the album indulges in a ballad that lulls the listener into a melancholic calm. ‘Mother Tongue’, on the other hand, offers a dense web of flute lines, Latin-accented bass playing, and rhythmic shimmering. A battle seems to be taking place deep in the undergrowth, where every sound carries meaning. ‘For Stanley’ is a silent tribute to Stanley Cowell, Sumi Tonooka’s mentor and a formative figure in her early career. Without pathos, but with a touching honesty. The final epilogue is the title track, ‘Under The Surface’, a jazzy flirtation with bossa nostalgia, but in the spirit of the suite, quite humorous and light-hearted.

Sumi Tonooka doesn’t just write compositions; she narrates and lives her music. She lets
others share her voice and reminds us that strength often lies in connection, in listening, in reacting, in togetherness. ‘Under The Surface’ is a work that draws you not into the past, but into the depths. To where connections grow, where music shines beneath the surface. And incidentally, ‘Under The Surface’ is perhaps the most beautiful walk in the woods you’ve ever taken with your eyes closed.
(9/10 points = Essential)

~Michael Haifl/SaitenKult Magazine