sayr: salt | thirst
Acclaimed guitarist Jussi Reijonen launches sayr,
his intimate new series of solo recordings, with a stunning new album
out October 24, 2025
sayr: salt | thirst out October 24th, 2025 on unmusic
With sayr, his new series of recordings for solo string instrument, Finnish-born guitarist, Arabic oud player and composer Jussi Reijonen offers an intimate, meditative counterpoint to the ambitious 5—movement suite heard on his acclaimed 2022 large ensemble work Three Seconds | Kolme Toista.
sayr is centered around a metaphorical reframing of the concept of “sayr” as found in Arabic music — literally, “course” or “motion” – referring here to a musical pathway unfolding through improvisation in an acoustemological memory palace: a pathway of memory recalled and reimagined through music, refracting in reverse in the space between sound and personal experience. Inspired by the archaic sound and feel of a late-1940s Gibson LG-2 steel-string acoustic guitar generously gifted to Reijonen by a former student, sayr uses a set of pre-composed musical gestures as loci or touchstones.
Like rooms in a memory palace, Reijonen navigates freely between them through improvisation, letting memories surface through the sounds themselves. Each gesture becomes a portal, triggering emotional and sensory echoes shaped by his life across Northern Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman, Lebanon, and the United States.
The first chapter of the series, recorded in one fully improvised take at Reijonen’s home studio on steel-string acoustic guitar one afternoon in March 2025, sayr: salt | thirst weaves textural references of various string instruments from around the world – the guitar, the Finnish kantele, the Arabic oud, the Moroccan sintir, and the West African kora – into a compelling whole refracting echoes of Hamza El Din, Farid al-Atrash, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabaté, Mahmoud Guinia, Paco de Lucía, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz and Camarón de la Isla, with the musical form unfolding a personal narrative that vacillates between lament, unease, brightening and transformation.
“There is a deftness and balance to Reijonen’s work
that conveys both the epic and the personal...
a record that is compelling for its restraint
in deploying its myriad musical influences.”
Jussi Reijonen
is an award-winning composer,
fretted/fretless guitarist and Arabic ‘ud player.
Photograph © Ville Tanttu 2025.
Born in Rovaniemi, a small town on the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland, fretted/fretless guitarist and ‘ud player Jussi Reijonen is truly a product of the liminal spaces between cultures.
Having grown up in Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman and Lebanon, and spending much of his adulthood in the United States, Jussi has lived a life soaking up sounds, sights, scents and shades of Nordic, Arabic, African and North American aesthetics and expression, all of which are reflected in his creative work as composer and performer.
Jussi’s debut album un | ان [unmusic 2013] was released to great critical acclaim, with Guitar Player magazine referring to it as “extraordinary music” and Lucid Culture calling it a “still, spacious, slowly unwinding masterpiece”. The album was nominated for an Independent Music Award in 2014.
His 2022 album Three Seconds | Kolme Toista [Challenge Records International 2022] introducing his nonet with Jason Palmer (USA), Bulut Gülen (Turkey), Layth Sidiq (Jordan/Iraq), Naseem Alatrash (Palestine), Utar Artun (Turkey), Kyle Miles (USA), Keita Ogawa (Japan) and Vancil Cooper (USA) was nothing short of an artistic triumph. Described as “unlike anything in memory… creates a new, genre-less, form… spellbinding from beginning to end, and full of virtuoso performances… one of the best recordings of 2022” by AllAboutJazz and “a stunner… a unified, diverse, overwhelming statement” by JazzTimes, the album has been a major international critical success, receiving 5-star reviews and being selected as Best Creative Albums of 2022 by AllAboutJazz and Best Jazz Albums of 2022 by Glide Magazine. His Three Seconds | Kolme Toista nonet was chosen as a Jazzahead! 2023 official showcase artist.
His latest project sayr is a series of completely improvised solo recordings exploring the small, simple and sparse, the rugged earthy, the gnarly unpretty; and most of all, bare feet in soil; roots and branches; and paths less – or differently – predetermined. The first release of the series, sayr: salt | thirst will be released on October 24th, 2025 on Reijonen’s own unmusic label.
Alongside his work as leader, Jussi has worked as sideman, composer or arranger with a diverse array of world-renowned artists. He has collaborated with Jack DeJohnette, Robin Eubanks, Pepe de Lucía, Javier Limón, David Fiuczynski, Simon Shaheen, Bassam Saba, Arto Tunçboyacıyan, Dave Weckl, Hüsnu Şenlendirici and the New York Gypsy All-Stars, among others. He has performed extensively at prestigious festivals and venues throughout the United States like Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress, as well as in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Canada, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
He currently teaches at Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki.
BOOKINGS
GEORG LEITNER PRODUCTIONS GmbH
Walter Laurer
wlaurer@glp.at
RECORD LABEL
UNMUSIC
Jussi Reijonen
info@jussireijonen.com
NEWS
News & Updates
Pre-order exclusively on Indiegogo starting Tuesday, August 5th 2025!