Marco Benevento has always moved like someone who understands the studio as its own instrument, not just a room where the toys are. Long before he began popping up on stages with Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, and in the liner notes of albums by Clairo and Leon Bridges, Benevento was already thinking like a producer — listening for texture, tension and negative space, and the strange emotional alchemy that occurs when groove and curiosity collide. His forthcoming album sharpens that instinct into focus, presenting Benevento as a virtuosic keyboardist and bandleader, and a composer building worlds from rhythm, tone and feeling.
Across several albums and a touring life that’s taken him from Coachella to Newport Jazz Festival, Fuji Rock to Bonnaroo, Benevento has cultivated a devoted fanbase by refusing genre loyalty. Jazz, rock, psych, funk, indie — these aren’t lanes so much as raw materials. The Los Angeles Times once described his approach as a “genre-blind mashup,” while NPR Music praised his ability to balance “the thrust of rock, the questing of jazz and the experimental ecstasy of jam.” That balance has become his calling card in the studio, where his sensitivity to arrangement and mood has made him a sought-after collaborator for artists working in vast universes.
As a collaborator, Benevento’s résumé reads like a map of modern, genre-fluid music: Clairo’s intimate pop, Kali Uchis’ velvet psychedelia, Kevin Morby’s pastoral indie rock, Lady Wray’s deep-pocketed funk. Wherever he’s working, Benevento brings the same sensibility: respect the song, then gently bend it until it reveals something new. His keyboards frame, color, and converse.
That philosophy carries directly into his new album, a genre-bending jazz record that folds in soul and reggae’s elastic low-end with open-door perception. The project began three years ago as a kind of private exercise; Benevento writing intuitively, inspired by Italian film scores and melody. Over time, those sketches evolved into something broader and more muscular, to the grand majesty heard here. What emerges is music that moves cinematically without becoming precious. Tracks can feel like chase scenes or slow dissolves, sometimes within the same song. Jazz improvisation sharing space with reggae pocket, orchestra, and psych-pop atmosphere. It’s exploratory but grounded, complex yet unmistakably groove-forward.
“Frizzante” bubbles with the kind of buoyant charm longtime Benevento listeners will recognize immediately. Elsewhere, “Jogging Fast” plays like a high-speed pursuit through narrow streets—fusion jazz with a pulse that suggests Herbie Hancock circa ‘74. “Turandot,” featuring the Italian vocalist Marianne Mirage, is Stereolab meets Portishead, a sauntering tune with a dreamy aura. In the best way, you can move from one track to the next and genuinely wonder how they coexist on the same album — and that disorientation is intentional.
In a live setting, Benevento continues to stretch these ideas with his own band featuring Karina Rykman on bass, while maintaining deep ties to improvisational lineage through Joe Russo’s Almost Dead and collaborations with Trey Anastasio, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and George Porter Jr. But in the studio, this new chapter makes something clear: Marco Benevento is operating at the highest level now, shaping sound with purpose and curiosity. This album announces itself loudly, unfolding as a reminder that great producers don’t chase trends: they listen closely enough to let the music tell them where it wants to go. In that way, the album feels both outward-facing and deeply intimate. It’s music that moves — across genres, tempos and registers — while remaining anchored to the joy of discovery. It’s a record that resembles motion, carrying the past forward without ever standing still.