Trumpeter/composer Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's album Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings is due June 12, 2026, on Nonesuch Records. The album features four new compositions by each musician as well as one collaboration. The album track “Soundcheck“ is available today and can be heard below; you can pre-order the album here. The duo, long admirers of each other’s musicianship, met at Halvorson’s Brooklyn apartment and began playing together periodically, going back as far as 2009. They rehearsed the music on Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings in January 2025, just before performing it at the New York City club The Stone; they recorded this album the next day at Sear Sound. 

The duo made two previous attempts at recording an album but felt that they got it right with this third session. Halvorson says of their rapport, which developed over those years of friendship and collaboration, “I think it’s partly a shared aesthetic and an ease of communication. I feel comfortable to try whatever.” Akinmusire concurs, “I think it’s rare to find an improviser that all goes and nothing has to go at all. It’s rare to feel like you don’t have to do anything and you can do anything. And that’s what I love about playing with Mary.”

Though Halvorson regularly uses effects pedals on her guitar, Akinmusire’s use of one on Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings is new. Having recently gotten an updated model of the Line 6, Halvorson was passing her old ones along to friends. “Ambrose was interested in trying a Line Six. I gave him one five minutes before the rehearsal and was amazed how quickly he was able to do incredible shit on it ... in literally five minutes,” she says.