For an artist who has spent the past few years finding her voice between soul, jazz and contemporary R&B, Aria’s debut album Rectify arrived with the feeling of a milestone — and its London launch was appropriately personal.
On 21 September 2026, the London-based singer-songwriter returned to PizzaExpress Live Soho, the very venue where she first performed live in London three years earlier.This time, however, she was there to introduce a full album of her own.
That sense of coming full circle was impossible to miss.
Released through Sarah Gillespie’s Pastiche Records, Rectify brings together nine tracks shaped by relationships, desire, vulnerability, anger and self-discovery. The record sits comfortably in the space between neo-soul and jazz, while leaving plenty of room for contemporary R&B influences and Aria’s instinct for storytelling.
And this is very much a collaborative record. Chris Montague features prominently on guitar, while the album’s wider musical cast includes keyboard players William Hobson, Ross Stanley and James Pearson, bassist Harry Gould, drummer Daniel Hester, trumpeter Poppy Daniels and saxophonist Trish Clowes. Backing vocalists Elisha Zion, Siobhan Prince and Lauren Fretwell also play an important role in the album’s rich vocal sound.
Chris Montague performing with Artikal Sound System at Wonder Bar, Asbury Park, 11 October 2024. Photograph by Constantino14, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
A live sound with plenty of soul
The Soho launch demonstrated why the album’s live dimension matters.
Opening with “Resentment”, Aria moved through original material including “Angel”, “Kiss Me”, “Only Time I Get”, “Belong” and the album’s title track. “Rectify” itself arrived in the second set as a slow-burning, funky number, with flute and trumpet adding extra colour to the groove.
The performance also made room for songs that have influenced Aria, including Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott, alongside Bonnie Raitt’s “Something To Talk About” andEdith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose”. Rather than feeling like distractions from the album, thecovers helped underline the musical territory Aria is drawing from.
From Rectify Your Soul to Rectify
The album represents a substantial step forward from Aria’s earlier releases. Her debut single, “Rectify Your Soul”, arrived in August 2024, followed by “Lover Mine” and, in 2025, “It’s All Your Fault”. The latter was subsequently named Jazz FM’s Track of the Week and received BBC Radio 2 support.
“Rectify Your Soul” also established the collaborative approach that runs through the wider album. Recorded at Eastcote Studios with live musicians playing together, theproject was produced with Sarah Gillespie and Polly Gibbons, with Grammy-winningengineers George Murphy and Andrew Tulloch involved in the recording and masteringprocess.
That live-in-the-room philosophy seems particularly important to understanding Rectify. This isn't a project built around stripping everything back to a solitary vocal and studio polish. The arrangements leave space for musicians to interact, while Aria remains at the centre.
The next stop: London Jazz Festival
The Soho launch is only the beginning of the album's live story.
Aria is scheduled to bring Rectify to the 2026 EFG London Jazz Festival on 17 November at Crazy Coqs – Live At Zédel. The festival describes the performance as a celebration of the debut album, with Aria fronting her band for an evening combining neo-soul, jazz and contemporary songwriting.
After three years of developing her sound, Rectify gives Aria a proper introduction: soulful without being confined to soul, jazz-aware without becoming a conventional jazzrecord, and built around songs that are clearly personal to their writer and performer.
The Soho launch may have marked the album's arrival, but Rectify feels more like the opening chapter of something considerably bigger.