Omer Govreen - All Things Equal

All Things Equal is the second album from a quartet of European millennials who met at Amsterdam's most prestigious conservatory, and it sounds like a band figuring out exactly how much they can trust each other in real time.

Their 2018 debut Maya earned enough attention on JMI that the label funded a trip to New York for the follow-up, cut at Reservoir Studios in January 2024. This time Omer Govreen steps forward as the group's clear compositional voice, writing everything and steering the improvisations, with Aleksander Sever's vibraphone, Floris Kappeyne's piano, and Wouter Kuhne's drums building the kind of interplay that only comes from years of actually playing together rather than a session assembled for the occasion.

The title track sets the record's tone immediately, patient and conversational, no one instrument rushing to dominate. Comfort lives up to its name with the album's warmest, most settled stretch, Narrowing tightens the group's focus into something more urgent and searching, and Waiting for Wouter closes the record as an affectionate, loose-limbed nod to their own drummer, the kind of in-joke that only a band this close would bother writing down.

Seven tracks, a conservatory pedigree, and a genuine chemistry that no amount of technical training alone could fake.