*Announcing* Tom Skinner - Kaleidoscopic Visions // new album out September 26th
(( photo by Jason Evans ))
*** announcing ***
Tom Skinner
Kaleidoscopic Visions
LP, CD, DD out September 26th, 2025
Today, drummer-composer Tom Skinner announces Kaleidoscopic Visions, his second solo album, out September 26th via Brownswood Recordings and International Anthem. He has also revealed a run of US shows in October, with dates in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, plus a London performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.
Listen to lead single / title track
“Kaleidoscopic Visions”
and preorder the album here
(( Album cover art by Studio Camo ))
Kaleidoscopic Visions showcases Skinner drawing together the many threads of his career as one of the UK’s most versatile and free-thinking contemporary musicians. Performing and recording with Sons of Kemet, The Smile, David Byrne, Meshell Ndegeocello, Alabaster DePlume, Floating Points and Peter Zummo as well as a wide range of collaborations across London’s vibrant improvised and electronic scene, Skinner’s diverse touchpoints are brought together in an album of quiet power and profound truths, reflecting his journey so far and opening the road towards what is to come.
Where Skinner’s 2022 debut Voices of Bishara drew inspiration from Abdul Wadud’s 1978 cello masterpiece By Myself, Kaleidoscopic Visions shifts toward more personal, fully composed material — brought to life by the intuitive improvisations of both long-time bandmates and new high-profile collaborations. As writer Piotr Orlov reflects in his notes on the album, the result is a record that chronicles “the importance of considering the view from the middle of one’s own life, taking stock alongside memories and family, heroes and friends new and old.”
As such, Kaleidoscopic Visions unfolds across two distinct sonic landscapes. Side A presents entirely instrumental compositions performed by Skinner's live Bishara band — bassist Tom Herbert, cellist Kareem Dayes, and Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael on various woodwinds and reeds — with electric guitar on two tracks courtesy of Portishead's Adrian Utley. A drummer-composer bringing his wealth of experience to bear on the role of bandleader, Skinner composed primarily on guitar, embracing the freedom that came with writing on his secondary instrument.
These compositions include "Auster," dedicated to late novelist Paul Auster, and "Margaret Anne," which honors Skinner's mother Anne Shasby, a former classical concert pianist prodigy who abandoned her own promising career in the face of systemic misogyny, only to impart on her son what Skinner calls "the gift of music."
Skinner’s musical world opens further on Side B, where a collection of poised vocal collaborations stretch out from jazz and improvisation towards a more dream-like, soulful sound. The centerpiece is "The Maxim," a ten-minute collaboration with Meshell Ndegeocello, a dubby, spacious meditation on life and death, delivered with a free-spirited grace. For Skinner, working with Ndegeocello — whom he first saw at Glastonbury as a teenager in 1994 — represents a full-circle moment, indicative of the indirect paths and inspirational detours that have shaped his life.
The album goes on to feature South Carolina-based singer Contour (Khari Lucas) who appears on the low-lit soul ballad “Logue,” and closes with “See How They Run” featuring London keyboardist-vocalist Yaffra (Jonathan Geyevu). It is the album’s most overtly lyrical track, an articulate exposition of jazz-inflected spoken word that speaks not only to the genre-fluid nature of the music but the breadth of Skinner’s palette.
Available to stream from today, title track “Kaleidoscopic Visions” is an intricate and beautifully realized expression of the album’s prism-like multitudes, where feather-light instrumental interplay and lush melodic flourishes are anchored by Skinner’s trance-like rhythm section.
As Skinner describes it: “Kaleidoscopic Visions was the first piece I wrote for the album. Based around an intuitive piano improvisation, it set the tone for my approach and the sound I wanted to achieve in the creative process. Showcasing the conversational and collaborative dynamic of the music and my band, it foregrounds a moody, cinematic flow within a hazy, psychedelic backdrop.”
...Upcoming Live...
In October, Skinner visits the US for a few showcase dates in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, all of which he'll be doing with a unique ensemble of Chicago and NY based musicians TBA.
Then he returns to home for a performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival with his regular working ensemble featuring Tom Herbert, Kareem Dayes, Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael. Dates and links below:
(( photo by Jason Evans ))
…about Tom Skinner…
London based drummer, composer and producer Tom Skinner has been a vital and central figure in the burgeoning underground music scene in London throughout the last 20 years.
In 2012, Skinner released his debut self-titled solo record under the alias Hello Skinny to critical acclaim, MOJO Magazine describing it as “…existing in that fertile zone where jazz, dub, techno and avant-pop deliquesce into an exhilarating free-for-all.” The second Hello Skinny album Watermelon Sun, released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label in 2017, featured a collaboration with acclaimed veteran New York composer and trombonist Peter Zummo.
Tom is also an original member of award-winning band Sons Of Kemet alongside band-leader and frequent collaborator Shabaka Hutchings. Their third album Your Queen Is A Reptile [Impulse! 2018] garnered worldwide critical acclaim including a Mercury Prize 2018 nomination. Their last album Black To The Future [Impulse! 2021] was met with rave reviews, NME giving it 5 stars, claiming the album to be the band at their “most dynamic and urgent”.
In 2022, Tom released his eponymous debut Voices of Bishara via the three label collaboration of Brownswood, International Anthem & Nonesuch Records. It was inspired by and named in reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s 1978 solo album By Myself, which was privately pressed on Wadud’s label, Bisharra. Featuring Kareem Dayes on cello, Tom Herbert on bass, Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia on woodwinds, the album was called “a terrific affirmation of what makes Skinner so interesting as both a drummer and now a composer” by Treble. Following the album’s release, Tom reformatted his Voices of Bishara ensemble for live performances, with woodwind players Chelsea Carmichael and Robert Stillman in place of Hutchings and Garcia.
Between 2021-2024, Skinner was active as co-leader of The Smile with Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Across those 3+ years The Smile toured extensively and released three critically-acclaimed albums (A Light for Attracting Attention, Wall of Eyes, and Cutouts).
Throughout his career, Skinner has performed and recorded with many other notable musicians including Alabaster DePlume, Ruth Goller, Graham Coxon, Grace Jones, Kano, Zero 7, Floating Points, The Invisible, Meshell Ndegeocello, David Byrne, and many more.
Deluxe Vinyl Package
Kaleidoscopic Visions comes on a Limited Edition 140-gram Yellow vinyl LP inside a heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with an insert sheet, obi strip and poly-lined innersleeve. Pressed on 'biovinyl' at Optimal in Germany, with lacquers cut at Electric Mastering in London.
Available on Limited Edition Yellow Color vinyl for $29 USD.
Also available on Classic Black vinyl for $26 USD.
*** also available ***
Tom Skinner
Voices of Bishara
(released November 2022)
The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album By Myself, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’.
This album – which features Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia on woodwinds, Kareem Dayes on cello, Tom Herbert on bass, and Skinner on drums – is a classic-sounding record that connects backwards to Skinner’s 2017 Hello Skinny collaboration with American composer and Arthur Russell-collaborator Peter Zummo on Watermelon Sun. It links sideways to Makaya McCraven’s beat maker-inspired treatments of jazz sessions, and it offers a musical bridge to Sons of Kemet’s most meditative moments.
The result is a tight, hypnotic and unique 31-minutes of music. Voices of Bishara is sculpted around timeless and deeply emotional music that contains masses of movement and exceptional harmonic depth and texture. It sweeps and soars through soundworlds, rich in musicality and always anchored by the deep doubling of cello and bass.
