Turning Jewels Into Water - Morning Birds and Distant Drums (2026)

The latest transmission from Indian-born drummer/producer Ravish Momin and Haitian percussionist Val Jeanty brings their idiosyncratic fusion of folk rhythms, illbient psychedelia and club music to Al Wooton's TRULE imprint, deploying fractal side-room head-melters primed FFO Shackleton, Azu Tiwaline or John T. Gast.

It's been ages since we heard from Momin and Jeanty; the duo's ace debut 'Map of Absences' materialised in 2018 and kicked down some serious dividing walls, blending improv, Indian folk and esoteric rhythms with futurist club elements inspired by artists like DJ Lag and Nihiloxica - there was even a remix from Slikback. Their sequel to that record might have been a long time coming, but it's even more appetising. Significantly streamlined, it does a great deal with very little, zeroing in on the tiny elements - swing, microtonality, subtle polyrhythms - and jumping off from there. It works because Momin and Jeanty know exactly where to stop; so much contemporary club music loses its way because of the wealth of options open to producers, but Turning Jewels into Water don't seem to have that problem. Their tracks are laser focused, sparse but packed out with tiny details that'll have you going back again and again.

A surface read of 'A Fire of Flowers' might be simple enough, with its rolling, syncopated beat that wouldn't be out of place on PRÍNCIPE and brittle synths straight from the gqom playbook, but it's begging you to reach further in. Those looped voices are just off the grid, while the claps and rhythmelodic knocks fire us off to the Indian subcontinent, then is that a UK drill sub and Charanjit Singh's arpeggiated synths? When echoing transformer scratches warm up 'In Dombivili', cannily reaching back to NYC's illbient era, it's never too much - it just asserts the duo's place in the city's experimental music lineage. The intensity is reduced a little on the (literally) charming 'An Invocation', giving room for Momin and Jeanty's additional elements - rap samples, synths and wailing vocals - to take pride of place, but they're in their element on 'Tapori Beat Special', searching out the mid-point between kuduro and Haitian spiritual forms.