Finnish guitarist, Arabic oud player, and composer Jussi Reijonen is unveiling sayr, an intimate new series of solo string recordings, beginning with the hauntingly meditative album sayr: salt | thirst, out October 24, 2025 via Reijonen’s label unmusic.
Where his acclaimed 2022 large ensemble album Three Seconds | Kolme Toista explored expansive, five-movement compositions, sayr embraces solitary reflection and improvisation, offering a deeply personal counterpoint. Recorded in a single, fully improvised session on Reijonen’s steel-string acoustic guitar in March 2025, the album is divided into two contrasting arcs — “salt” and “thirst” — reminiscent of a vinyl LP’s sides.
The performance draws inspiration from string instruments across the globe — from the Finnish kantele and Arabic oud to the Moroccan sintir and West African kora — weaving in echoes of Hamza El Din, Farid al-Atrash, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabaté, Paco de Lucía, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, and Camarón de la Isla. The music unfolds like a personal narrative, moving through lament, unease, and ultimately transformation.
Reflecting on the creative process, Reijonen says:
“I have lately found myself drawn to solitary reflection and introspection: to the small, simple and sparse, the rugged earthy, the gnarly unpretty… most of all, to bare feet in soil; to roots and branches; to paths less – or differently – predetermined.”
Reijonen frames sayr around the Arabic concept of “sayr” — literally “course” or “motion” — as a metaphorical pathway through memory. Using a late-1940s Gibson LG-2 steel-string acoustic guitar as his guide, he navigates pre-composed musical gestures as touchstones, creating a memory palace of sound that draws on his life across Northern Finland, the Middle East, East Africa, and the United States.
“For me, Eliot’s lines from Four Quartets capture how the perception of change or motion in the world is dependent on whether a person is in motion or still. Motion and stillness define each other, and their dance becomes the music itself,” Reijonen explains.
Critics have praised Reijonen’s previous work, with Three Seconds | Kolme Toista described as:
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“Unlike anything in memory… creates a new, genre-less form… one of the best recordings of 2022.” — Karl Ackermann, All About Jazz
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“A stunner… a unified, diverse, overwhelming statement.” — JazzTimes
sayr: salt | thirst marks the first installment in a series of solo improvisations that Reijonen plans to release between larger ensemble works. The next recording will capture a live concert at Helsinki Music Centre on September 19, 2025, featuring both acoustic guitar and oud, kicking off an international solo tour.
“I think of sayr as an evolving musical diary, creating space for personal reflection and exploration of new musical ideas. The only edits to this first recording were removing a sneeze and dividing it into two arcs,” says Reijonen.
Born in Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland, Reijonen has lived across Northern Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman, Lebanon, and the United States. His experiences across these cultures shape his music as composer, improviser, and performer. He has collaborated with artists including Jack DeJohnette, Robin Eubanks, Pepe de Lucía, David Fiuczynski, Simon Shaheen, Bassam Saba, Arto Tunçboyacıyan, and Dave Weckl, performing at venues such as Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress.
Release Details:
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Album: sayr: salt | thirst
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Label: unmusic – UNCD12025 / UNLP12025
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Recording Date: March 1, 2025
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Release Date: October 24, 2025 (Digital & CD; LP TBA)
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Pronunciation: Jussi Reijonen — “You-see Ray-yo-nen”
