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sayr

“Jussi Reijonen has an almost mystical connection to his instruments...
Between resonances, overtones, and pauses, a music emerges that tells of human experiences – of inner movement, of the flow of thoughts, of the search for harmony.

“sayr: salt | thirst” is an album of rare poetic power. ”
— Jacek Brun, Jazz-Fun.de (Germany)
“An entire atlas of musical voices... This is not quotation or pastiche — it is absorption.

’sayr: salt | thirst’ is less an album than a statement of artistic identity:
uncompromising, borderless, and profoundly human.”
— Thierry De Clemensat, PARIS MOVE (France)
“★★★★★”
— Matti Komulainen, HIFIMAAILMA (Finland)
“Best Jazz Albums of 2025”
— Dean Nardi, AllAboutJazz (USA)
“★★★★”
— Guido Michelone, Il Manifesto (Italy)

Acclaimed guitarist and oud player Jussi Reijonen launches sayr,
his intimate new series of recordings for solo string instrument,
with double release of two stunning new albums

Originally inspired by the archaic sound and feel of a late-1940s Gibson LG-2 steel-string acoustic guitar generously gifted to him by a former student, Jussi Reijonen’s sayr is a new series of intimate, improvised solo recordings 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 a memory palace of sound.

The series was launched with a double release of two albums,
sayr: salt | thirst and sayr: kaiho – live in Helsinki
on October 24th, 2025 via Reijonen’s own label unmusic.

As Reijonen says, “I have of late found myself drawn to solitary reflection and introspection: to the small, simple and sparse, the rugged earthy, the gnarly unpretty; and most of all, to bare feet in soil; to roots and branches; to paths less – or differently – predetermined. sayr has become a kind of musical diary: an ever-growing, ever-evolving musical organism that is like a metaphorically Arabic taqsim-inspired solo improvisation through time, place and memory.”

“Think of a guitar version of Keith Jarrett.”
— George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly

Like rooms in a memory palace, sayr uses a set of musical gestures as loci or touchstones. Reijonen navigates freely between them through improvisation, letting memories surface through the sounds themselves. 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.

“Our learned tendency to categorize and compartmentalize music
— in order to understand, appreciate and enjoy it —
is useless here.

Nothing about this music is typical...
His music asked me to rid myself of preconceptions, to become a more acute listener. ”
— Eric Snider, JazzTimes (USA)

Out now VIA BANDCAMP

sayr will not be available for streaming in full.

Download Press Materials (ENG | DE | FIN)

sayr: salt | thirst

180g Gatefold Vinyl LP | CD Digipak | Digital

sayr: salt | thirst was recorded in one fully improvised take at Reijonen’s home studio on steel-string acoustic guitar one afternoon in March 2025 and is split into two contrasting arcs, “salt” and “thirst” as on two sides of a vinyl LP.

The performance 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: kaiho – live in Helsinki

CD Digipak | Digital

Performed on steel-string acoustic guitar and the Arabic ‘ud and recorded and filmed live in concert in Helsinki, Finland, on September 19th, 2025, sayr: kaiho is divided into three arcs – “halla” (“frost” in Finnish); “fes” (in homage to the Moroccan medina where he bought his first oud); and “vielä” (“yet” in Finnish).

With “kaiho” referring to longing or nostalgia in Finnish – akin to “saudade” in Portuguese and Galician –, the live recording highlights to stunning effect Reijonen’s deep relationships with the sonorities of two string instruments that not only have become so entangled with his own memories, but also share between them a deep historical lineage.

SAYR: SALT | THIRST
UNCD12025 / UNLP12025

loci and imagines by Jussi Reijonen
Steel-string acoustic guitar by Jussi Reijonen

Recorded at unsound, Helsinki, Finland,
March 1st 2025 by Jussi Reijonen

Mixed and mastered at Bacqué Recording,
Roselle NJ, United States by Luis Bacqué

Produced by Jussi Reijonen

Purchase sayr: salt | thirst

SAYR: KAIHO – LIVE IN HELSINKI
UNCD22025

loci and imagines by Jussi Reijonen
Steel-string acoustic guitar and Arabic ‘ud by Jussi Reijonen

Recorded live in concert at Black Box Hall, Musiikkitalo, Helsinki, Finland, September 19th, 2025 by Olli Ovaskainen

Mixed and mastered at Bacqué Recording,
Roselle NJ, United States by Luis Bacqué

Produced by Jussi Reijonen

Purchase sayr: kaiho
 
 

© 2025 unmusic. All rights reserved. Made in Finland.

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See

 
 
Jussi Reijonen - sayr-kaiho - © Ville Tanttu 2025 - 3.jpg

 LISTEN

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, having grown up in Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman and Lebanon, and spending much of his adulthood in the United States, Jussi Reijonen has lived a life soaking up sounds, sights, scents and shades of Nordic, Arabic, East African and North American aesthetics and expression, all of which are reflected in his creative work as composer, improviser 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.

Following a period of self-reflection and reassessment while refining his craft for 13 years living in Boston and New York, in 2022, he introduced his transcultural nonet with Jason Palmer (USA), Bulut Gülen (Türkiye), Layth Sidiq (Jordan/Iraq), Naseem Alatrash (Palestine), Utar Artun (Türkiye), Kyle Miles (USA), Keita Ogawa (Japan) and Vancil Cooper (USA) with the release of Three Seconds | Kolme Toista [Challenge Records International 2022], a career-turning album that 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 series was launched with a double release of two albums, sayr: salt | thirst – selected as Best Jazz Albums of 2025 on AllAboutJazz – and sayr: kaiho – live in helsinki on October 24th, 2025 via his own label unmusic.

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.

A summa cum laude graduate of Berklee College of Music (B.M. ‘11) and New England Conservatory of Music (M.M. ‘13) in Boston, he is currently pursuing his doctorate at Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, where he also teaches.

Jussi Reijonen - sayr-kaiho - © Ville Tanttu 2025 - 1.jpg

In the Press

“Best Jazz Albums of 2025”
— Dean Nardi, All About Jazz (USA)
“★★★★★”
— Matti Komulainen, HIFImaailma (Finland)
“★★★★”
— Frank Zöllner, InMusic (Germany)
“★★★★”
— Guido Michelone, Il Manifesto (Italy)
“Stories of grief, restlessness, and enlightenment...
Reijonen’s subtle touch brings the themes close to the listener.
Even though there is only a man and a guitar on stage,
the atmosphere becomes enviably hypnotic.

★★★★”
— Juha Seitz, Ilkka-Pohjalainen (Finland; translated)
“Our learned tendency to categorize and compartmentalize music
— in order to understand, appreciate and enjoy it —
is useless here.

Nothing about this music is typical...
His music asked me to rid myself of preconceptions, to become a more acute listener.”
— Eric Snider, JazzTimes (USA)
“Jussi Reijonen has an almost mystical connection to his instruments...
Between resonances, overtones, and pauses, a music emerges that tells of human experiences – of inner movement, of the flow of thoughts, of the search for harmony.

’sayr: salt | thirst’ is an album of rare poetic power.”
— Jacek Brun, Jazz-Fun.de (Germany; translated)
“[Reijonen’s] sensibility recalls composers such as Monteverdi or Purcell, masters who understood that silence is not the absence of sound but a means of intensifying what follows.

This is art as much as it is music.

[sayr: kaiho - live in helsinki] unfolds as a contemplative, almost Zen-like experience, music that bears the marks of a disenchanted world while remaining quietly infused with hope. It feels grounded in the soil and suspended in the air at the same time, elusive by design.

In an era increasingly dominated by speed, saturation, and digital excess, Reijonen offers something else entirely: music that resists consumption and instead invites reflection.

There are many forms of music worthy of admiration. This is among those that shape us over time, the way meaningful books do, not by overwhelming us, but by quietly accompanying our thinking, long after the final note has faded.

INDISPENSABLE!”
— Thierry De Clemensat, PARIS MOVE (France)
“Think of a guitar version of Keith Jarrett.”
— George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly
“It didn’t take long to determine that I was dealing with a unique voice here.

With his beautiful and highly personal fabrications, often with a melancholic touch
– he is Finnish, after all – Reijonen takes us to places where very few people have been before.

These are places where peace and quiet play an important role,
and if there are places we need right now, then these are surely them.”
— Tor Hammerø, Nettavisen (Norway; translated)
“Like a poem you hear for the first time, but whose power reawakens buried memories...
[sayr: salt | thirst] brings to mind the words of Christian Bobin:

”...the modern world destroys our vital forces, our ability to be attentive,
dreamy, slow, loving, our ability to perform gratuitous gestures.

Books, writing, beauty, poetry, certain types of music can bring us back to ourselves
and give us the strength to fight against the fragmentation we find ourselves in,
with our souls torn apart, scattered across the planet, thrown to the dogs.””
— Anne Yven, CitizenJazz (France; translated)
““To listen to this record is to hear an entire atlas of musical voices...
This is not quotation or pastiche — it is absorption.

Reijonen’s gift is to let these echoes coexist,
not as borrowed idioms but as organic elements of his own language...
’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.

GREAT / COUP DE COEUR”
— Thierry De Clemensat, PARIS MOVE (France)
“It is music that does not end, but only disappears like tracks in the snow... Every note seems to be searching for itself, every pause tells of time passing and yet lingering.

Jussi Reijonen dispenses with everything that distracts.
No overdubs, no effects, no ornamentation. Just fingers, strings, breath, space...
[he] achieves something rare here: making music that is allowed to be simple.

’sayr: kaiho - live in helsinki’ is a moment captured in the flow, where memory and the present touch each other just before they drift apart again.

It is the sound of longing - not for something, but for the moment itself.”
— Michael Haifl, SaitenKult (Germany; translated)
“Majestic... delivers full power and resonance, while creating an intimate musical cocoon that can protect and distance us from the fury of the world.

It creates important space for a form of music that deals with migration, searching, and wandering... [sayr is] his finest, unforgettable, haunting musical project.”
— Anne Yven, Jazznytt (Norway; translated)

RECORD LABEL

 

unmusic
Jussi Reijonen
email

International Bookings

 

GEORG LEITNER PRODUCTIONS GmbH
Friedrich Vösenhuber
email | website

PRESS INQUIRIES AND PUBLICITY

UNITED STATES, CANADA
+ INTERNATIONAL

Ann Braithwaite
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
email

GERMANY, AUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, BENELUX

Martina Weinmar
MaWeMarketing
email


FINLAND

Karoliina Virkkunen
Freelance
email

With the Support of