The Australian-Finnish bassist and composer releases a 16-track record built around two double basses, two voices, and electronics

Headwater is out on 26 June 2026 via Lawrence English’s Room40 (read our interview with Lawrence English). The record carries sixteen pieces, each built as a thread running through the whole rather than a standalone track. Helen Svoboda plays double bass and voice and wrote most of the material; Jacques Emery handles the second bass; Finnish vocalist Selma Savolainen takes the second voice; Tilman Robinson produces and operates the electronics.

Title: Headwater
Artist: Helen Svoboda
Release Date: 2026-06-26
Genres: Avant-garde, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music
Label: Room 40
Description: Helen Svoboda's Headwater runs sixteen pieces as interlocking threads, built around two double basses, two voices, and electronics.

Svoboda was born in Finland and moved to Australia at the age of five. That background surfaces in the vocal writing, which pulls from Finnish folk harmony and incorporates phrases in words Svoboda and Savolainen invented together, approximating Finnish without replicating it. The two basses shift between independent lines and a single fused mass of sound, with Robinson‘s electronics pushing the texture further out.

Composition is distributed across the group. Emery wrote Solo (track 12) alone; Ymni (track 9) is credited to Svoboda and Savolainen together; Hepuli Earworm (track 16) to Svoboda and Robinson. Everything else is Svoboda‘s.

The album was recorded at Sydney Rd Studios with engineer Pat Telfer and mixed by Robinson. Lachlan Carrick handled mastering. The material started as part of an interdisciplinary performance at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne in 2024, backed by the Musica Viva Australia FutureMakers program and the Berg Family Foundation. Angus Kirby directed, filmed, and edited the video for If. Liner notes are by Callum Mintzis.

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