The music is rooted in groove, shaped by tradition, and sparked by visual art—but more than anything, it feels like the sound of people discovering the music together as they go.
Brass Tonic Records
Sarah Wilson – Trumpet, Compositions; Kasey Knudsen – Alto Saxophone; Mara Fox – Trombone; John Schott – Guitar; Lisa Mezzacappa – Bass; Jon Arkin and Tim Bulkley – Drums
Before she was a trumpeter and composer, Sarah Wilson was a puppeteer. It’s not the kind of backstory you hear every day—there’s some anthropology in there too, plus giant papier-mâché heads and street theater. But when you listen to INCANDESCENCE, it kind of makes sense. There’s something theatrical about the music—full of movement and color. It’s celebratory without being over the top. It just draws you in.
Wilson, who’s based in the Bay Area and has long focused on community and collaboration, leads a sextet that brings that spirit to life—there’s a real sense of joy and connection in the music. Her band, Brass Tonic, features an all-woman horn line—Wilson on trumpet, Kasey Knudsen on alto sax, and Mara Fox on trombone—backed by a sharp rhythm section with guitarist John Schott, bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, and two drummers (Jon Arkin and Tim Bulkley split the tracks). The result is a set that feels as much like a celebration as a recording session.
INCANDESCENCE draws from two vivid wells: the layered, large-scale paintings of Viennese artist Thomas Reinhold and the joyful, rough-and-tumble tradition of New Orleans brass bands. Reinhold often paints a layer, lets it dry, then comes back and adds another—and another. The music feels like that too, with parts stacking and shifting against each other in motion. And that second-line spirit? It’s never far off. This is the kind of sound you might stumble on while walking through the French Quarter—simple, alive, and full of swagger.
Three of the album’s tracks—’Architecture in Space,’ ‘Music Appears to Stand Still,’ and ‘Echoes Refrain’—came straight out of Wilson’s 2023 residency in Krems, Austria, where she set up a kind of mobile composing studio inside the State Gallery of Lower Austria. Surrounded by Reinhold’s paintings, she wrote in real time, feeding off their energy. Like Reinhold, Wilson builds in stages: a line here, a gesture there, letting things settle before adding more. The music breathes, and underneath it all is that same scrappy spirit.
The rest of the album carries a bright, iridescent sense of joy—just like the title suggests. On the title track, the trombone steps out strutting, the trumpet falls in behind, and the guitar repeats a jagged, funky riff. The horns lock in over a thumping bassline and a gritty, streetwise groove.
On ‘Hopeful Sorrow,’ things pull back a bit. Wilson’s trumpet has a conversational quality to her phrasing—thoughtful, clear, like she’s working something out in real time. Tim Bulkley’s drumming has a loose, street-smart feel.
It’s obvious Wilson loves the sound of brass bands, but part of her can’t help drifting toward another world entirely: the quiet, deliberate layering of European art music, the long view of structure and shape. “Marching band music has to be simple,” she says, “but I wanted to hone it into more developed music with a similar vibe.” She’s not sanding it down—she’s letting both worlds coexist. The tunes have bounce, but they also carry a certain stillness, like someone thinking carefully between dance steps.
What really comes through on INCANDESCENCE is the sense of connection, the joy of collaboration. The music is rooted in groove, shaped by tradition, and sparked by visual art—but more than anything, it feels like the sound of people discovering the music together as they go. There’s joy in the interplay, in the trust, in the way each musician makes space for the others. “Time just evaporates,” Wilson says of those moments, “and you’re completely immersed in feeling the euphoria and joy of being in this creative moment.” You can hear that in every track.
