The album starts with a saxophone taking a few tentative first steps and is soon joined by other instruments conjuring large lumbering animals across a silver apples moonscape. And the album goes on from there, with seemingly infinite variations/permutations of nine ensemble members expressing the panapoly of human experience.

Ches Smith drives the ensemble with a steady pulse, the groove celebrating the European tradition (I was reminded of Bartok’s string quartets, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Magma). The rhythms are multidirectional, but not in the African diaspora sense that Billy Hart describes in Oceans of Time. My understanding is that Webber’s large ensemble albums are through-composed, and to my ears they step close to the contemporary classical line, but register as jazz.

Where does Anna Webber get all these compositional ideas? How does she compose all these fresh and precise instrumental arrangements while mapping out engrossing dynamics over the length of a piece? Webber gives us a glimpse into her process in an interview on the Close Enough For Jazz podcast. When she’s ready for a new project she’ll write for a few hours each morning. Webber says that she also needs to feel like there’s enough time to get into her writing, but also have enough time that it’s OK if she doesn’t make something happen by the end of the day. Webber spent 2 years working on It’s easier to imagine the end of the world… That mix of drifting divination and intense focus helps explain where her stream of ideas comes from.

At 90 minutes, the release is a lot, but rewarding. It took multiple listening sessions to absorb (iPod & bluetooth headphones with house and yardwork, blasting from stereo while on stationary bike in basement, and sitting at the PC).

The album’s official release date is this Friday.

https://jonmgreenbaum.substack.com/p/the-latest-from-anna-webber-camila

The album’s opening track certainly shifts the Overton window of musical acceptability. After those first fifteen minutes, the rest of the album—abrupt though it may be—unfolds more peacefully by comparison, letting us appreciate the compositions in a different light.

By employing the very stylistic codes it critiques, the music highlights how the unacceptable becomes normalized. The resulting movement toward a different world, one to be invented together, is thrilling. And while the compositions are powerful, striking, and almost oppressive, they remain deeply spellbinding. Ultimately, this album is exceptional.

It’s easy for me to get dark and stay dark right now – to imagine the worst possible ending to everything. But in my reading, I found inspiration from people who helped me imagine a different kind of future, a future where we help each other out and ensure everyone’s basic rights; one in which we take care of each other and the planet.”
–Anna Webber

Anna Webber: tenor, soprano sax, flute; Ryan Easter: trumpet; Yuma Uesaka: clarinet, contrabass clarinet, soprano sax; Ingrid Laubrock: tenor, soprano sax; DoYeon Kim: 25-string gayageum; Mary Halvorson: guitar; David Virelles: piano; Chris Tordini: bass; Ches Smith: drums, chimes

https://bestofjazz.org/jazz-october-2026/#Anna-Webber-it-s-easier-to-imagine-the-end-of-the-worldd

It's Easier to imagine the end of the world... (Intakt 459) seufzt ANNA WEBBER im großen Verbund mit Ryan Easter: Trumpet, Yuma Uesaka: Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, S. Sax, Ingrid Laubrock: T./S. Sax, DoYeon Kim: Gayageum, Mary Halvorson: Guitar, David Virel­les: Piano, Chris Tordini: Bass und Ches Smith: Drums & Chimes. Brooklyn macht das möglich. Das titelgebende Zitat lautet vollständig „Es ist leichter, sich das Ende der Welt vorzustellen als das Ende des Kapitalismus“ und flipperte von Fredric Jameson zu Slavoj Žižek zu Mark Fisher zu Webber. Mit 'Corporate Tax as a Percentage of Total Federal Revenue in the US, 1952, 1975, and 1998' zitiert die Saxophonistin aus Vancouver Naomi Klein. 'Agitation as the Goal' greift George Saunders' Kritik an der Manipulations­kraft der (A)sozialen Medien auf. (Much of immediacy's lure rests in the) 'Momentary Com­pensatory Solidities of Imagined Contact with an Imagined Real' bezieht sich auf Anna Kornblus Dia­gnose, dass in der flach und schnelllebig zugerichteten Welt, in der alles sofort verfügbar sein und ständig im Fluss bleiben muss, Reflexion, Ironie und künstleri­scher Distanz ab­handen gekommen sind. 'X (Fourth Future)' bezieht sich auf Peter Frase und den 'De­growth-Kommunismus', für den Kohei Saito plädiert in „Systemsturz. Der Sieg der Natur über den Kapitalismus“ und „Marx im Anthropozän. Ideen für die postkapitalistische Gesellschaft“. Mit (It is in collectivities that we find) 'Reservoirs of Hope and Op­timism' von Angela Davis wird zuletzt der Gegenpol zum grassierenden Narzissmus, Konsumismus und Hirnschiss bestärkt. Alle Stücke nehmen sich 10 bis 15 Min. Zeit für Reflexion und Hoffnung und vermitteln das zugleich. Insistent, mit markanten Röhrenglockenschlä­gen, schrillem Ächzen, fernöstlichem Arpeggio, Regenbogenfarben. Die individuellen State­ments eingebunden in kollektives Stakkato, gemeinsames Träumen, Rumoren und Zu­packen. Mit Piano und vogeligem Flöten jazzig und mitreißend. Als ein­dringliche, ostinate Gegenagitation mit sopranistischer Flügelzange und Gayageum. Mit Kornblu, Lacan, Melancholie, die vom Piano ausgeht, aber konterkariert wird von unfassbarer Trompete, Gepolter, aufgekratztem Alltogether. Mit Pizzicato, jacobinischem Froh­sinn und akzelera­tionistisch rockend geht es gen X. Und zuletzt stiftet die Trompete gegen nochmal disso­nante Röhrenglocke und Sägebass den Optimismus, der das Kollektiv in Schwung bringt und selbst die murrende Kontrabassklarinette ansteckt. Bei Webber stehen Euphorie, Hysterie und Resignation im Raum. Mich alten Miesepeter dürft ihr nicht fragen.