Drummer-composer Tom Skinner announces Kaleidoscopic Visions, his second solo album, out 26th September 2025 via Brownswood Recordings and International Anthem.

Kaleidoscopic Visions unfolds across two distinct sonic landscapes. Side A presents entirely instrumental compositions performed by Skinner’s live Bishara bandbassist Tom Herbert, cellist Kareem Dayes, and Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael on various woodwinds and reedswith electric guitar on two tracks courtesy of Portishead’s Adrian Utley. A drummer-composer bringing his wealth of experience to bear on the role of bandleader, Skinner composed primarily on guitar, embracing the freedom that came with writing on his secondary instrument.

These compositions include “Auster,” dedicated to late novelist Paul Auster, and “Margaret Anne,” which honours Skinner’s mother Anne Shasby, a former classical concert pianist prodigy who abandoned her own promising career in the face of systemic misogyny, only to impart on her son what Skinner calls “the gift of music.”

Skinners musical world opens further on Side B, where a collection of poised vocal collaborations stretch out from jazz and improvisation towards a more dream-like, soulful sound. The centerpiece is “The Maxim,” a ten-minute collaboration with Grammy Award-winning Meshell Ndegeocello, a dubby, spacious meditation on life and death, delivered with a free-spirited grace. For Skinner, working with Ndegeocellowhom he first saw at Glastonbury as a teenager in 1994represents a full-circle moment, indicative of the indirect paths and inspirational detours that have shaped his life.

The album goes on to feature South Carolina-based singer Contour (Khari Lucas) who appears on the low-lit soul ballad Logue, and closes with See How They Run, featuring London keyboardist-vocalist Yaffra (Jonathan Geyevu). It is the albums most overtly lyrical track, an articulate exposition of jazz-inflected spoken word that speaks not only to the genre-fluid nature of the music but the breadth of Skinners palette.

This should come as no surprise. On Kaleidoscopic Visions, one of Londons most vital musical figures gives us a sparkling glimpse of the multi-coloured lens through which his unique sound is now refracting.

1. There’s Nothing To Be Scared Of
2. Auster
3. Margaret Anne
4. Kaleidoscopic Visions
5. MHA
6. Still (Quiet)
7. The Madim
8. Extensions 12
9. Logue
10. See How They Run