The trio Shadowlands – featuring Robin Fincker, Kit Downes, and Lauren Kinsella – is releasing a new album: Two Minds blends traditional sean-nós songs with original compositions, combining folk and contemporary music in the spirit of European jazz.

The fruitful collaboration of French-born saxophonist-clarinetist Robin Fincker and British pianist Kit Downes goes back decades. Their life paths have taken them from London to two different countries in Europe, and they met again five years ago when they teamed up with Irish singer Lauren Kinsella to set traditional songs and contemporary poetry to music. Their internationally acclaimed first album, Ombres (released on BMC Records in 2024) combined folk and contemporary music in the spirit of European jazz, resulting in a musical world that is sometimes magically beautiful, sometimes surprisingly rough. Two Minds follows a similar concept, but with a more polished sound that relies even more heavily on improvisation. Shadowlands thus continues its journey between old and new music, shedding light on the unheard corners of past songs whilst unfolding its own version of contemporary folk music. This new repertoire features traditional Sean Os songs alongside original compositions, completed by works of numerous poets – both men and women – from the 19th century to the present day.

Robin Fincker is also known to BMC Records audiences as a member of Deep Ford or Vincent Courtois’ Tosca project, and his most famous band is the trio with Courtois and Daniel Erdmann, whose album Nothing else was released in 2023. A BBC Jazz Award winner, Kit Downes currently tours the world with ENEMY and Deadeye, which recently released a new album on BMC Records. Downes also plays on the 2025 album of Szelest (with Lucia Cadotsch and Ronny Graupe), while his solo albums were released on ECM Records. Although Lauren Kinsella’s work spans a wide range of musical styles between pop jazz (Snowpoet) and contemporary experimental music, the folk-rooted repertoire of Shadowlands reveals a truly unique and rarely heard side to her art.