The album draws inspiration from The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, whose ideas around “temporal polyphony” – the coexistence of multiple timelines and possibilities – sparked aspects of the project’s thinking. The quartet translates this into flexible compositions that favour ambiguity, overlap and intuitive decision-making. Rather than fixed forms, the pieces evolve through interaction, allowing different temporal layers to emerge organically in performance.

Musically, the record builds on the band’s established language: a close-knit rhythm section paired with a highly responsive horn frontline. Dąbrowski and Meinild move between tightly aligned phrases and more diffuse, textural playing, while bassist Richard Andersson and drummer Peter Bruun shift between grounded swing and open, momentum-driven passages. The quartet sound remains central, with subtle overdubs on “Circular One” and “Natskygge Ordnen” extending the palette without losing immediacy.

Ocean Fanfare’s origins date back to 2012, initially featuring drummer Tyshawn Sorey, whose collaboration with the group led to their 2014 debut Imagine Sound, Imagine Silence. Since then, the quartet has developed a distinct collective identity across the trilogy: First Nature – Ecological Relations (2019) focused on acoustic interplay, while Second Nature – Capitalist Transformation (2022) incorporated algorithmic processes and electronic augmentation into the compositional framework.

With Third Nature – Temporal Polyphony, Ocean Fanfare bring these threads together in their most open-ended and fluid music to date. Framed by Nicolai Howalt’s photograph Old Tjikko – an image of one of the world’s oldest living trees – the album reflects on duration, simultaneity and change, closing the trilogy with a work that foregrounds process, perception and collective improvisation.