Album lore

UPWARD, issued by Dreams & Fears Records in early 2026, presents Tyrone Allen II’s exploration across ambient jazz, free jazz, and spoken word. The fourteen tracks unfold with a quiet deliberation, where Allen’s tenor saxophone often lingers in the space between melody and murmured narration. The album’s title track, UPWARD, typifies this approach, weaving sparse instrumental passages with fragments of spoken word that suggest a reflective mood.Allen’s work here eschews conventional structures, opting instead for loose, exploratory forms that recall the jazz ballad tradition while venturing into more abstract territories. With modest circulation—just over a thousand scrobbles on Last.fm—UPWARD remains a subtle artifact for those attuned to jazz’s less trodden paths, a record with the patient resonance of a well-thumbed archive volume.

Album lore

UPWARD, issued by Dreams & Fears Records in early 2026, presents Tyrone Allen II’s exploration across ambient jazz, free jazz, and spoken word. The fourteen tracks unfold with a quiet deliberation, where Allen’s tenor saxophone often lingers in the space between melody and murmured narration. The album’s title track, UPWARD, typifies this approach, weaving sparse instrumental passages with fragments of spoken word that suggest a reflective mood.Allen’s work here eschews conventional structures, opting instead for loose, exploratory forms that recall the jazz ballad tradition while venturing into more abstract territories. With modest circulation—just over a thousand scrobbles on Last.fm—UPWARD remains a subtle artifact for those attuned to jazz’s less trodden paths, a record with the patient resonance of a well-thumbed archive volume.