Always Ever, out April 24, 2026, features Spence exploring a diverse spectrum of experimental approaches and preparations on the piano
“Spence is both imaginative and expansive, sensitive to mood and contrast, texture and melody, euphony and cacophony.” – Stuart Nicholson, Jazzwise
“Spence possesses a particular kind of vision that speaks to an original distance, whether from our usual sense of a scene as place or as constituent style, a special capacity to see through time and space to a different territory.” – Stuart Broomer, The Free Jazz Collective
The title of Always Ever, the absorbing new album from Australian pianist and composer Alister Spence, suggests a wellspring of sound and inspiration that gazes beyond the present moment into the infinite. An ambitious, singular and deeply personal collection of inventions and experiments, the album ventures further down the path on which the pianist embarked with his acclaimed 2020 album Whirlpool, which All About Jazz hailed as “a good place to hear [Spence’s] uncommon imagination at work.”
Out April 24, 2026, Always Ever consists of 16 wholly improvised pieces, each one approaching the piano from a distinct perspective – some showcase the improvisatory versatility that have made Spence one of the preeminent jazz pianists in Australia stretching back to his days with the internationally renowned group Clarion Fracture Zone; others transform the sonics of the piano through a variety of eclectic preparations and approaches.
“Over time,” Spence explains, “the playing of the piano for me has expanded to encompass the whole piano, more than just playing the keys. I’m interested in contingency. I’m interested in accidents and what they cause to happen in the music, and I deliberately try to create those accidents for myself.”
Whirlpool marked the beginning of an investigatory new chapter in Spence’s nearly four decade career, his first solo outing and the introduction of an expansive palette of singular approaches to the piano. He delves deeper into that exploration on Always Ever, documenting a process of discovery into the boundless possibilities of the instrument that he’s played for his entire life.
Spence traces the roots of his current endeavors back to his days with Clarion Fracture Zone, which experimented with then-new sampling technology and diverse jazz traditions. During one session, saxophonist Tony Gorman encouraged the pianist to evoke the more abstract style of Cecil Taylor, which Spence immediately seized upon.
“Everything we’d done up to that point had been fairly conventional,” he recalls. “I had never been asked to do anything like that before, and I just had the most fun with it. That experience inspired me to follow my ears and my intuition about what pleases me sound-wise, and slowly bled more and more into my practice.”
Spence’s experimentation has taken on myriad forms over the ensuing decades. In parallel with his life as an in-demand composer for film and television, Spence has embarked on a number of adventurous projects: a long-running collaboration with the acclaimed Japanese pianist, composer and improviser Satoko Fujii; a trio with drummer Toby Hall and bassist Lloyd Swanton of The Necks, which has also recorded as a quartet with guitarist Ed Kuepper, co-founder of influential proto-punk group The Saints.
But over the last few years Spence’s solo work has emerged as one of the most fruitful and eclectic avenues for his sonic imagination. “I’ve long been interested in the color of sound,” he explains. “When I play the piano, I’m often just as interested in what happens from a so-called mistake as I am in the more conventional piano note sound. My goal is to break with preconceptions and to just be in the moment as much as possible.”
Always Ever takes the form of sixteen relatively brief improvisations, each one a distinct process of thought, approach and investigation. The mood is set with the percussive opener “Mystic,” basking in the resonant echoes of muted string strikes. That’s followed by the wandering flurries of “Determination,” which takes rapid, agitated turns into divergent directions. The remainder of the album continues in such contrasting and inventive patterns: the insistent shimmers of “Play of Light” set against the rattling metal-on-metal textures of “Distant Cousins;” the pendulum swing from the Cecil-esque abstractions of “Afternoon at Ranscom Street” (the address of the Sydney studio where the album was recorded) to the meditative drones of “Begin from the Middle.” Moods range from the stark, pointillist beauty of “Searchlight” to the wiry spirals of “Rain Dance” to the self-explanatory clamor of “Scrape Rattle Strike.”
A deft and widely admired composer, Spence has freed himself to follow the chance occurrences of a moment’s sonic instigation throughout the striking and consistently surprising Always Ever. “I do things throughout this album where I’m only broadly aware of how they’re going to sound,” the pianist says with obvious delight. “So much is just open to the moment, to the particular place where I strike the string or hit the frame. There’s lots of flux in what happens after that. Even if I’m playing the piano more conventionally, I try to deliberately make myself go off track so that I’m not able to guess what’s going to happen as a result. It’s so exciting to work my way into and out of that situation.” Throughout Always Ever, it’s equally thrilling to listen to that unpredictable process in action.
photo: K Munns
Alister Spence
Pianist, improviser and composer Alister Spence has established a reputation as a preeminent creative force in jazz and improvised music in Australia and beyond. With a performing and composing career spanning more than 30 years, his wide-ranging talents have led him to perform with and compose for some of the world’s most respected artists in contemporary music, jazz and improvisation. His solo projects include a Fender rhodes album, Within Without – described as “experimentation and avant-garde of quality” (Il Manifesto) – and a piano double album, Whirlpool, listed Best of 2020 in New York City Jazz Record. The Alister Spence Trio with Lloyd Swanton (the Necks) on double bass and Toby Hall on drums and glockenspiel has recorded eight albums to critical acclaim. In 2020, the trio joined with Ed Kuepper, cofounder of influential proto-punk group The Saints and founder of The Laughing Clowns, to form Asteroid Ekosystem, releasing two albums in that formation. Spence has established creative collaborative relationships with internationally recognised improvisers in Japan, Scotland, Sweden and the US, including acclaimed pianist/composer Satoko Fujii, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, saxophonist Raymond MacDonald and pianist Myra Melford. Spence was a co-leader and composer with the internationally acclaimed group Clarion Fracture Zone for 15 years, is a founding member of Wanderlust and a long-standing member of The Australian Art Orchestra.
Alister Spence – Always Ever
Alister Spence Music – ASM018 – Recorded September 28, 2025
Release date April 24, 2026
alisterspence.com
alisterspence.bandcamp.com
# # #