Jazz Fusion Worth Hearing: Solace by Umut Aksoy Puts the Electric Bass in Front
Jazz Fusion Worth Hearing: Solace by Umut Aksoy Puts the Electric Bass in Front
A Turkish Bassist Turns More Than 15 Years of Teaching Into a Nine-Track Debut
Solace, the debut album from Turkish bassist Umut Aksoy, came out on 13 March 2026 through Mirage Recording. It runs to nine instrumental tracks of modern jazz fusion. What makes it worth noting is where the bass sits: it carries melodies, rhythm and detail, then steps back into the band when the music needs room.
Umut Aksoy’s title track Solace sits in the playlist below with our jazz, classical and soundtrack picks. Umut Aksoy’s artist profile tracks where Solace has been covered. Solace reached MusicDrops.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Listen to the album, then keep reading for where Aksoy’s bass goes next.
Before Solace, Umut Aksoy Spent More Than 15 Years Teaching Bass and Released Two Singles in Two Weeks
Aksoy arrived at this album as a teacher as much as a player. He has spent more than fifteen years playing and teaching bass. Along the way, groove, fingerstyle playing, slap, harmonics and melodic lines all became part of how he plays.
On record, the run-up was short and quick. Collision arrived as the first single on 30 January 2026. The Wish followed exactly two weeks later, on 13 February, and the album landed a month after that.
The two singles showed two sides of the record before anyone heard the rest. Collision is the direct, energetic one, built on funk and slap bass meeting orchestral and ensemble colours. The Wish, by contrast, is more cinematic, a piece about choosing to keep hoping when the outcome is uncertain.
Collision also names its lineage. Aksoy points to three bassists behind it, among them Larry Graham and Marcus Miller. Graham gets the credit for inventing slap bass in Sly and the Family Stone, a technique he calls thumpin’ and pluckin’. Miller, meanwhile, was the main writer and producer of Miles Davis’ Tutu in 1986. Still, Aksoy wrote Collision to feel like a collision rather than a technical demonstration, and that aim runs through the whole album.
MusicDrops.News Curator Team: “We placed Solace in our playlist because it is a bass album that never turns into a bass showcase. The instrument leads when the tune needs it and steps back when the band has something to say.”
Umut Aksoy’s Solace Runs From a 44-Second Intro to an After Party Outro, With Breath as Its Most Personal Piece
On Solace, Umut Aksoy wrote, arranged and produced every track and plays the bass. Around him, Serdar Göral plays guitar and Özkan Özdemir plays keyboards and synthesizers. Metin Karaköy is on drums, Fabian Hernandez on saxophone and Mykhailo Kobets on trumpet and trombone. Aksoy mixed and mastered it with Batu İman, and Ayhan Aydın worked with him on the release at Mirage.
Making it took time. Writing, arranging and producing Solace became a long learning process for Aksoy, with every piece asking how much space the bass should take and when to hand the lead to the band. That balance is the real subject. This is an instrumental record about uncertainty, movement and acceptance, and the bass is simply the language Aksoy knows best.
Solace opens with Intro, 44 seconds that set the scene for a journey with no fixed destination. The title track follows and sits at the album’s emotional centre, a piece about finding peace without solving everything first. Passenger then deals with the feeling of being carried along rather than steering.
Breath is the most personal track. The breathing heard on it was recorded from people close to Aksoy, and near the end his grandmother, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease, says the names of family members. The track presents it plainly, as a real moment, and it gives the album a quiet pause.
Next, Harmonics Interlude moves the bass out of its low role into delicate natural harmonics, a bridge into Collision. After The Wish and Shelter, a track about the places people go to feel safe, the album closes on After Party – Outro. It ends with acceptance instead of another climax.
What Comes Next for Solace, a Sextet and a Launch Concert at Kulüp Müjgan in Ankara
After Solace came out, Umut Aksoy arranged the music for a sextet of bass, electric guitar, keyboards and synthesizers, drums, saxophone and brass. The band launched the album at Kulüp Müjgan in Ankara. On stage, the arrangements are meant to keep growing rather than copy the record, which suits music shaped by jazz.
For listeners who came to fusion through its great bass players, start with Collision, then go back and play Solace from the 44-second opening to the outro.
Hear Solace on Apple Music. Follow Umut Aksoy across platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, and Facebook.
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