sayr: salt | thirst
A Memory Palace For Solo Acoustic Guitar
LP/CD/DIGITAL OUT OCTOBER 24, 2025 VIA BANDCAMP
DIGITAL SINGLE EXCERPTS
With sayr: salt | thirst, the first release in 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: salt | thirst is an exploration of the small, the simple and the sparse; the rugged earthy; the gnarly unpretty; and most of all, of memories of roots and branches; of bare feet in soil; and of paths less – or differently – predetermined.
Rooted in a metaphorical reframing of the concept of “sayr” as found in Arabic music — a musical pathway or unfolding, literally “course” or “motion” —, this solo improvisation becomes a spontaneous exploration through an acoustemological memory palace: a pathway of memory recalled and reimagined through music.
Using a set of pre-composed musical gestures as loci or touchstones — like rooms in a memory palace — Reijonen navigates freely between them through improvisation. Each gestural locus becomes a portal, awakening acoustemological imagines shaped by his life across Northern Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman, Lebanon, and the United States: mirrored echoes of Frances A. Yates’ “forms, marks, simulacra of what we wish to remember” refracting in reverse in the space between sound and personal experience.
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.
“sayr: salt | thirst is less an album than a statement of artistic identity:
uncompromising, borderless, and profoundly human.
It is a reminder that
some of the most enduring music is not made by committee or calculation,
but by a single musician listening deeply, to memory, to silence,
and to the resonances of a world he has lived.”
CD/LP/DIGITAL AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER ON BANDCAMP
Album will not be available for streaming in full.
Jussi Reijonen
is an award-winning composer, Improviser,
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.
“Unlike anything in memory... creates a new, genre-less, form.”
Alongside his work as leader, Jussi has collaborated with a diverse array of world-renowned artists, including Jack DeJohnette, Robin Eubanks, Pepe de Lucía, Simon Shaheen, Bassam Saba, Arto Tunçboyacıyan, Hüsnu Şenlendirici, The New York Gypsy All-Stars, Javier Limón, Dave Weckl and David Fiuczynski among others, and has been a member of the New York Arabic Orchestra (NYAO).
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.
“A single, unified, diverse, overwhelming statement.”
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!