Watching the six musicians of the New York supergroup Nu Jazz play together is like witnessing an assault on any restrictive genre label. The band’s name is somewhat misleading in that sense, for whilst one certainly finds elements of jazz in the band’s constantly evolving sound, the music owes just as much to metal, post-punk, progressive rock and New York’s legendary No Wave scene.
The band’s members come from widely differing musical backgrounds and are at home in everything from experimental electronic music and jazz to queer dance-punk, through projects such as Deli Girls, Trap Music Orchestra, CGI Jesus and The Narcotix. That musical breadth is clearly reflected in the band’s own sound, where an avant-garde New York spirit meets strange mutations of metallic guitar, progressive bass lines, auto-tuned vocals and offbeat synth textures.
Nu Jazz made a strong impression with their debut album Vol. 1 from 2023. The album was a tour de force of wild ideas and surprising interplay, raw and compelling. With their latest album, Un Jazz, released in the summer of 2026, they convincingly demonstrate that few contemporary bands are capable of creating a sound that so skilfully balances on the brink of chaos, whilst the six musicians retain a sense of musical control.
“Roams and grows, expanding into all manner of space – physical, theoretical, cosmic, moral, and aural,” wrote The Quietus, very aptly, about Un Jazz, which is truly a musical trip of epic proportions. Their live album Live Jazz from 2024 also bears witness to their fantastic ability to convey that trip from the stage. There is every reason to have high expectations for their concert at the Roskilde Festival this summer.