Tom Skinner

He is an Afrobeat drummer, a hip-hop beatmaker, and a percussionist with a penchant for spiritual jazz—sometimes all at once. Tom Skinner has been shaping the London jazz scene as a drummer and producer for two decades. He co-founded Sons of Kemet and plays with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke in the band The Smile. Now, with “Kaleidoscopic Visions,” Skinner has found his voice as a composer—his most personal album to date. He named one of the songs on the album after his mother. True to Skinner’s style, the compositions move between jazz, indie, and African rhythms, often meditative, with plenty of room for his quintet’s improvisations. Saxophonists Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael weave airy harmonies, while Kareem Dayes on cello and Tom Herbert on bass support the melodic lines. One magazine describes the album as a quiet triumph—“music so multi-layered and thoughtful that you can literally hear its heart beating.”