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Clear Path Ensemble - Ascending

🌍 PR / Radio campaign x Clear Path Ensemble's new album Ascending

‍

Ascending is the fourth album from Clear Path Ensemble. In the past, bandleader Cory Champion tracked his first three albums, Clear Path Ensemble (2020), Solar Eclipse (2022), and Black Sand (2025) with a cast of some of the finest jazz musicians in Aotearoa New Zealand. This time around, he chose a different approach: improvising with, and in response to, himself, building a series of layered sonic landscapes recorded over a single day in the same room.

“There was a lot of self-reflection in the way the pieces were built intuitively. Each layer of improvisation defers to the presence and physicality of the world in the music,” he explains. “As much as possible, I’m trying to get out of the way, and in this, I hope there is more space for the listener to explore deeply.”
Performed with vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, bass metallophone, glockenspiel, piano, Rhodes, chimes, and percussion, Ascending expands on the sensibilities Champion revealed in his 2025 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award–winning composition “Cascade d’Ars”.

Opening in the spirit of American composers Steve Reich and Laraaji’s late '70s to early ‘80s minimalist, new-age, and ambient explorations, the album begins with glistening, hypnotic figures on “Tongue Rhythm”. Softer and more watery, “Train of Thought” blends lush chords and rolling percussion into a reflective soundscape. Shades of mid-70s Miles Davis and the Pacific sunset visions of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman flow through “Saying Something” and the title track, before the album closes with the celestial memory-lane melodies of “Epicycle”.

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Recorded solo, with the exception of “Saying Something”, featuring piano, Rhodes and vibes courtesy of Champion’s longtime collaborator, Daniel Hayles, Ascending’s six compositions represent a tasteful subtraction from the spiritual/psychedelic jazz, space music, ‘70s ECM jazz- funk, and electronica that coloured Clear Path Ensemble’s first five years.

‍
Ascending’s cover is adorned by an enigmatic acrylic-on-linen painting that the multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and writer Jade Townsend (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) created for her exhibition at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui, From the Lion’s Mouth. Fittingly, Townsend’s exhibition was the first space where Champion shared the album with listeners.

“Ascending draws on jazz as a practice rather than a style: improvisation as a way of thinking, listening as structure, response as form,” Champion reflects. “Each layer emerges in relation to what precedes it.” In moments, you can hear nods to Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s life-affirming ostinatos, and recent material from Fabiano Do Nascimento & Sam Gendel.

Ultimately, Ascending is a window into the soul of an artist looking inward as he reaches into the infinite and the sublime.

‍

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Clear Path Ensemble - Ascending

Clear Path Ensemble - Ascending

🌍 PR / Radio campaign x Clear Path Ensemble's new album Ascending

‍

Ascending is the fourth album from Clear Path Ensemble. In the past, bandleader Cory Champion tracked his first three albums, Clear Path Ensemble (2020), Solar Eclipse (2022), and Black Sand (2025) with a cast of some of the finest jazz musicians in Aotearoa New Zealand. This time around, he chose a different approach: improvising with, and in response to, himself, building a series of layered sonic landscapes recorded over a single day in the same room.

“There was a lot of self-reflection in the way the pieces were built intuitively. Each layer of improvisation defers to the presence and physicality of the world in the music,” he explains. “As much as possible, I’m trying to get out of the way, and in this, I hope there is more space for the listener to explore deeply.”
Performed with vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, bass metallophone, glockenspiel, piano, Rhodes, chimes, and percussion, Ascending expands on the sensibilities Champion revealed in his 2025 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award–winning composition “Cascade d’Ars”.

Opening in the spirit of American composers Steve Reich and Laraaji’s late '70s to early ‘80s minimalist, new-age, and ambient explorations, the album begins with glistening, hypnotic figures on “Tongue Rhythm”. Softer and more watery, “Train of Thought” blends lush chords and rolling percussion into a reflective soundscape. Shades of mid-70s Miles Davis and the Pacific sunset visions of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman flow through “Saying Something” and the title track, before the album closes with the celestial memory-lane melodies of “Epicycle”.

‍
Recorded solo, with the exception of “Saying Something”, featuring piano, Rhodes and vibes courtesy of Champion’s longtime collaborator, Daniel Hayles, Ascending’s six compositions represent a tasteful subtraction from the spiritual/psychedelic jazz, space music, ‘70s ECM jazz- funk, and electronica that coloured Clear Path Ensemble’s first five years.

‍
Ascending’s cover is adorned by an enigmatic acrylic-on-linen painting that the multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and writer Jade Townsend (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) created for her exhibition at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui, From the Lion’s Mouth. Fittingly, Townsend’s exhibition was the first space where Champion shared the album with listeners.

“Ascending draws on jazz as a practice rather than a style: improvisation as a way of thinking, listening as structure, response as form,” Champion reflects. “Each layer emerges in relation to what precedes it.” In moments, you can hear nods to Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s life-affirming ostinatos, and recent material from Fabiano Do Nascimento & Sam Gendel.

Ultimately, Ascending is a window into the soul of an artist looking inward as he reaches into the infinite and the sublime.

‍

Clear Path Ensemble - Ascending

🌍 PR / Radio campaign x Clear Path Ensemble's new album Ascending

‍

Ascending is the fourth album from Clear Path Ensemble. In the past, bandleader Cory Champion tracked his first three albums, Clear Path Ensemble (2020), Solar Eclipse (2022), and Black Sand (2025) with a cast of some of the finest jazz musicians in Aotearoa New Zealand. This time around, he chose a different approach: improvising with, and in response to, himself, building a series of layered sonic landscapes recorded over a single day in the same room.

“There was a lot of self-reflection in the way the pieces were built intuitively. Each layer of improvisation defers to the presence and physicality of the world in the music,” he explains. “As much as possible, I’m trying to get out of the way, and in this, I hope there is more space for the listener to explore deeply.”
Performed with vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, bass metallophone, glockenspiel, piano, Rhodes, chimes, and percussion, Ascending expands on the sensibilities Champion revealed in his 2025 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award–winning composition “Cascade d’Ars”.

Opening in the spirit of American composers Steve Reich and Laraaji’s late '70s to early ‘80s minimalist, new-age, and ambient explorations, the album begins with glistening, hypnotic figures on “Tongue Rhythm”. Softer and more watery, “Train of Thought” blends lush chords and rolling percussion into a reflective soundscape. Shades of mid-70s Miles Davis and the Pacific sunset visions of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman flow through “Saying Something” and the title track, before the album closes with the celestial memory-lane melodies of “Epicycle”.

‍
Recorded solo, with the exception of “Saying Something”, featuring piano, Rhodes and vibes courtesy of Champion’s longtime collaborator, Daniel Hayles, Ascending’s six compositions represent a tasteful subtraction from the spiritual/psychedelic jazz, space music, ‘70s ECM jazz- funk, and electronica that coloured Clear Path Ensemble’s first five years.

‍
Ascending’s cover is adorned by an enigmatic acrylic-on-linen painting that the multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and writer Jade Townsend (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) created for her exhibition at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui, From the Lion’s Mouth. Fittingly, Townsend’s exhibition was the first space where Champion shared the album with listeners.

“Ascending draws on jazz as a practice rather than a style: improvisation as a way of thinking, listening as structure, response as form,” Champion reflects. “Each layer emerges in relation to what precedes it.” In moments, you can hear nods to Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s life-affirming ostinatos, and recent material from Fabiano Do Nascimento & Sam Gendel.

Ultimately, Ascending is a window into the soul of an artist looking inward as he reaches into the infinite and the sublime.

‍