Snarky Puppy

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Image courtesy of Festival de Jazz de Barcelona

On November 16, 2024, Michael League, founder and leader of Snarky Puppy, woke up in Barcelona after playing the previous night at the Palau de la Música Catalana as a special guest of Andrea Motis's Temblor project. That same day he flew to Japan to write what would become Snarky Puppy's second collaborative album with the Dutch Metropole Orkest. Alone, with the idea of isolating himself to compose—with a few exceptions, including tennis matches and sake tastings—League wrote the music for Somni—yes, the original title is in Catalan—in a month. Though purely instrumental, the album makes a radically emotional appeal. Each track, we are told, explores a different aspect of the dream state: shifting identities, surreal logic, spectral intimacy and the strange emotional residue that remains after waking. "Instrumental music lends itself to exploring abstract concepts," League explained, "because the fact that it has no lyrics allows for a lot of imagination on the part of the listener."

The album was released on November 21. A few months later, Snarky Puppy returned to Barcelona to present the surprising and emotional Somni. "It's by far the most ambitious project we've ever done," League emphasized. Spoiler alert, he was right.

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