There is a particular kind of freedom that only appears when the music stops telling you exactly where it is going. A rhythm flickers at the edge of the room, a guitar note hangs in the air a little longer than expected, and suddenly the destination matters less than the journey. That sense of open-ended discovery runs through Wanderlust, the striking debut from Turin-based drummer and composer Mattia Zanlorenzi.
Released by Dodicilune in March 2026, the album feels like a musical map drawn while travelling — its routes constantly shifting between Zanlorenzi’s own compositions and the work of Paul Motian, whose restless, beautifully unconventional approach to rhythm casts a long shadow across the project. With guitarist Claudio Lodati and bassist Danilo Gallo alongside him, Zanlorenzi turns that influence into something exploratory and distinctly his own.
Across nine tracks, Wanderlust slips between intricate composition, spacious improvisation and bursts of restless energy. It is music with a strong sense of place but no fixed destination, inviting the listener to follow its detours and see where the trio lands next.
A journey inspired by Paul Motian
Zanlorenzi, born in 1994, came to the drums at 12 before moving from an early interest in pop and rock towards jazz. He studied at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Turin and the Conservatorio “A. Vivaldi” in Alessandria, where he graduated with honours in jazz drums and percussion. His academic work also led him deeply into the music of PaulMotian.
That connection is central to Wanderlust. Four of the album’s nine pieces are Motian compositions: “Sod House”, “Psalm”, “In the Year of the Dragon” and “India”. The other five — “Enigma”, “Corsa”, “Beyond Time”, “Assenza” and “Altrove” — are Zanlorenzi originals.
The result isn't presented as a straight tribute album. Recent reviews have insteadhighlighted the way Zanlorenzi uses Motian as a starting point for his own exploration, with the trio treating the compositions as spaces for interaction rather than museumpieces.
That distinction matters. Motian's career — from his celebrated work with the Bill Evans Trio and Keith Jarrett to his later groups with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano — was characterised by a highly individual approach to rhythm and ensemble interaction. Zanlorenzi's project engages with that legacy while surrounding it with his own compositions.
Credit: Marco Tambara, “Frisell lovano motian by MT.jpg”, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0). No changes made.
Three musicians, plenty of room to breathe
The instrumentation tells much of the story. Zanlorenzi handles drums and percussion, while Lodati contributes guitar, live electronics and Korg Monotron synthesizer. Gallo expands the low-end palette beyond conventional bass, also playing bass balalaika, Farfisa and noise box.
That unusual combination gives Wanderlust plenty of sonic territory to explore.
Recent coverage has pointed to Lodati's guitar as a major source of atmosphere, while Gallo's additional instruments help push the trio away from a standard jazzconfiguration. Zanlorenzi, meanwhile, often plays with restraint, allowing silence, texture and the interaction between the three musicians to become part of the rhythm.
The album was recorded on 28–29 June 2025 at Crossroad Recording Studio in Cologno Monzese, near Milan, with Vincenzo De Leo handling engineering, mixing and mastering.
And the recording's architecture is deliberately balanced: Motian's compositions are interwoven with Zanlorenzi's, making the connection between influence and individuality impossible to miss.
Wanderlust is about movement without a map
The album's title is an especially neat fit. Rather than suggesting a literal travelogue, themusic feels concerned with movement between musical states — composed and improvised, dense and sparse, rhythmic and atmospheric.
“Enigma” opens the record, followed by Motian's “Sod House”, before Zanlorenzi's “Corsa” and Motian's “Psalm” continue the alternating pattern. Later, “Beyond Time”, “Assenza” and “Altrove” push further into Zanlorenzi's own vocabulary, while “In the Year of the Dragon” and “India” return to Motian.
Independent reviews have similarly focused on the album's spaciousness and its refusalto settle into obvious genre formulas. One recent assessment describes Zanlorenzi's playing as capable of moving from near-whispered passages to occasional eruptions, while another hears the record as a meeting point between written material and open improvisation.
That makes Wanderlust an intriguing debut: the record is rooted in serious study, but itsambition isn't simply to demonstrate what Zanlorenzi has learned. Instead, the trio uses that knowledge to investigate what might happen when the familiar structures are loosened.
For listeners drawn to adventurous contemporary jazz, it is an album built around curiosity — and, appropriately enough, the willingness to keep wandering.