Jazz duo Dana & Alden have always had a wanderlust, something they credit to their maternal grandfather. Affectionately known as Papa, he was the kind of person others naturally gravitate towards. It was a photograph from one of his trips to Asia that inspired the Eugene, OR duo’s new album Papa’s Boat. In the image Papa is looking out across the horizon and stood next to his boat Sŵn y Môr (Welsh for “Sound of the Sea. ”) “I think so much of what Alden and I are doing comes from just watching him live his own unique life, ” says Dana. Alden agrees. “His emboldened, passionate personality gave us permission to be our own selves, to be unconventional and draw outside of the box. ”Recorded with Malcolm Catto in London in March 2025, Papa’s Boat combines all their childhood love and global experience to create an ecstatic sound built on Dana’s saxophone and Alden’s drums. Recorded with the duo’s backing band, Ebba Dankel (vocals and keys), Andrew Mitchell (bass), Eli Torgersen (vocals and guitar) and Salim Charvet (sax and synths), Papa’s Boat is rooted in jazz but pulling influence from indie, pop, rap, bossa nova, and beyond. A hypnotic combination of sax and buzzing synths on “Lighthouse” sets the tone for an album that uses water as both a reflective surface and a body to get lost in. Elsewhere there are collaborations with Mei Semones, Melanie Charles, and legendary Brazilian songwriter Marcos Valle, a hero figure to the band who appears on “El Gaucho” and “Friendship Is A Boat. ”

Throughout its runtime Papa’s Boat sails purposefully between memories of the past and visions of a brighter future. It doesn’t just commemorate their Papa as a beloved character, but shares him with the world.

After taking up piano at four (and studying with the same Houston-based jazz pianist through the end of high school), Alex Amen started playing guitar in mid-adolescence after discovering the likes of Nirvana and Neil Young. Although he later enrolled in film school in California with the intention of making documentaries about rock climbing (one of his lifelong passions), he dropped out after one semester to focus on music full-time. Within weeks, he’d moved into a historic commune in Anaheim where he soon started his first band, a psychedelic folk-rock outfit named American Slang. “The commune was a crazy place to live—there were hippies and punks and skaters, all in this beautiful house that used to be on six acres of strawberry fields but now it’s surrounded by strip malls,” says Alex. “The house was owned by a professor who’d bought it in the mid-’60s and still lived there with his family, so it had this fascinating history with the anti-war movement and renowned civil-rights/psychedelic activists from that time. We’d have these big communal meals every day and debate art and God and food and politics. It was a pretty amazing place to live for a while.”

 An artist untethered from time or place, Alex Amen crafts music that feels eternally familiar, yet strikingly new - shaped by a wandering spirit always in motion. Newly signed to ATO Records, Amen’s full-length debut is a body of work that opens a space for sustained and quiet wonder, offering up songs touched with both ease and beauty. Produced by Amen and engineered by Jonny Bell (Cage the Elephant, Chicano Batman), Sun of Amen matches its old-soul warmth with an astonishing clarity—the natural byproduct of his reverence for classic records and ardent refusal to chase nostalgia. Partly recorded at the legendary Valentine Recording Studios in L.A., Sun of Amen unfolds with a rich sonic depth achieved with the help of an expansive lineup of musicians, including several of Amen’s longtime bandmates as well as in-demand talents like Tommy de Bourbon (a multi-instrumentalist whose recent endeavors include playing pedal steel in Lana Del Rey’s touring band). 

As he moves into a new chapter of his journey, music and the natural world remain parallel forces in Amen’s life, providing an endless source of fortifying joy. “I think it’s important for everyone to have a physical connection with nature, partly because it creates more of a desire to make sure we’re not destroying the planet, but it’s also good for humans on every basic level to move and be outside,” he says. “It’s the same thing with music—I think I’ve been very blessed in the sense that music has always been something I’ve done because I love it; it’s never felt forced to me. I really just love the way it feels to play music, and I’ve found the more you chase it and live with an open heart, the more life brings you songs.”