Following the release of the atmospheric single “SELF LOVE,” the experimental jazz artist spoke to The Knockturnal about what to expect — and what expectations to discard — with the release of her upcoming record.
Milena Casado loves jazz. The Spanish instrumentalist has performed alongside an array of formative collaborators like Terri Lyne Carrington and Vijay Iyer, and has performed at notable jazz festivals and venues like the Village Vanguard alongside her quintet. Her experiences performing live and in songwriting now manifest in her upcoming debut record, Reflection of Another Self, which she hopes will embody what she loves about the genre while upending its conventions — an opportunity to place her own introspections in the limelight through song.
Ahead of the record’s May 16 release, Casado has shared several tracks that give life to her inner dialogue and observations of the surrounding world, reflecting on the brave front we often feel inclined to put up in the face of chaos on “Resilience” and present sociopolitical tensions on the pleasantly dissonant “O.C.T. (Oda to the crazy times).” These notions and themes are explored not only through sampling and occasional lyricism, but in conveying mood through experimental production and keen instrumentals. Her most recent single, “SELF LOVE,” serves as the closing track of her record and features a slow groove, rich vocal harmonizations, brass interpolations and a distorted verbal reflection on love itself.
The artist spoke to The Knockturnal following the release of “SELF LOVE” and in advance of her album release show, which will take place at Brooklyn Public Records on May 10.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Knockturnal: What has your experience with jazz and music as a whole been like up until this point in your life?
Milena Casado: I feel music has been a little bit of a journey. It’s been like my therapy somehow, being able to really express myself with my instrument, to discover myself, too, in the same way I was discovering music. So it’s been a really deep experience.
The Knockturnal: When listening to jazz yourself, are you often drawn to the classics or to more modern, experimental compositions? How do these influences manifest on this upcoming record?
Casado: A little bit of everything — I really love not only jazz, but any kind of music. And I feel that’s the beauty of it, that there’s so much out there, and I’m always with my ears open, trying to find new music. But I also really love the traditional. So I always go back to, you know, to Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Ornette Coleman… but I’m always trying to find new music. So it’s a little bit of everything in there. [For the album] I was really inspired by artists like Davis and his quintet, Milton Nascimento, Stevie Wonder. So I think I was really trying to mix all my influences into the album, and trying to create something that maybe I hadn’t really heard before.
The Knockturnal: You’ve noted that you had strong convictions when it came to what instrumentalists would feature on Reflection of Another Self. What was the process like of assembling that team for the record, both in terms of your core band and your features?
Casado: I feel it’s a little bit of a family situation, right? Like people that are really important to me — my core band are the people that I’ve been playing with the last couple of years, and I feel we’ve been developing a sound. They’re my friends too, my favorite musicians, so it’s just beautiful to create with them. The special guests on the album are people that are really important to me in in my life, my career, people that inspire me and that have mentored me— Terri Lyne Carrington, Kris Davis, Meshell Ndegeocello, Kokayi, Val Jeanty, Brandee Younger. I met many through the jazz scene during the last years, or from going to college.
The Knockturnal: Though this will be your debut album, you’re no stranger to performance as a whole. Did anything about your creative process change when it came to writing and performing music for your own record rather than someone else’s, or live for an audience?
Casado: Recording an album is a completely different story than actually performing live, and it’s something that is completely new for me because I’ve never done it before. So, you know, it felt like a really deep learning experience for me. Now I know that for the next one what I might do differently, but it was beautiful to just do it. And I feel all of us go through that first — you learn in this one, and then with everything you learn, you can then do it better.
The Knockturnal: What has the process been like to begin learning to produce your own music, and what does it mean to take up that role on Reflection of Another Self?
Casado: With the recording process as well as the mixing and mastering process, I learned all the terms of the different techniques, different ways to do it, and that would definitely affect the way I record the next time. I had to learn how to use Pro Tools and Ableton, and I bought my first synth.
The Knockturnal: Jazz has always been a genre that’s pretty inherently political, that idea of defying convention to create something new, and your album addresses social issues both through lyricism and instrumentation. What has your experience been like being a jazz musician in 2025, and how were you able to highlight and bring attention to topics important to you when creating the record?
Casado: For me, it’s really important to be connected to what’s happening socially, so it’s something really important in my music to portray what I’m going through, what I’m thinking, what I’m seeing — what is happening in the world. It’s really personal to me because I talk about personal experiences that I’ve had, but at the same time it’s universal, because we all go through similar things. And I really wanted to create something that could connect with people, where people feel themselves represented. Reflection of Another Self is about how sometimes we think we are a version of ourselves that doesn’t really represent us because it’s influenced by fears, insecurities, expectations, society in general, everything that’s happening — and then we realize that that’s another self. It’s not us. So the album is about reflecting about that and realizing all these things.
The Knockturnal: Your use of sampling — from late legends like Wayne Shorter to clips of your own family on the songs — are super unique and impactful. What do you like most about being able to sample and pull from these pieces of dialogue?
Casado: When you hear people like Wayne Shorter talking, there is always so much knowledge on that. I was really inspired not only by his art and his music but also by him as a person, and same with my mother and with my grandmother. They’re really big inspirations for me, and I feel the fact of being able to sample what they say to me or what they say to the world is something really important, and I think it’s going to inspire a lot of people to hear them.
The Knockturnal: How does improvisation play a role when performing in the recording studio? Was there any unintentional aspect of the final record that pleasantly surprised you?
Casado: I think, honestly, in most of the songs, there is the essence of improvisation because we played it all together live in the studio. A lot of the songs really took a different direction than what we initially had in mind, so that was really beautiful. We also did some completely free improvisations — no music, just playing in the studio. And those are actually “Introspection I” and “Introspection II.” These are improvisations, which I feel are an organic way of showing your vulnerability in the moment — what we feel, what we thought, what we did.
The Knockturnal: It’s so cool to see work from an experimentalist whose work can introduce a genre to a new demographic, or generation. Are there any preconceptions around jazz that you’re hoping to challenge with Reflection of Another Self?
I was really trying to create something that could include my roots musically, but also develop and stretch them a little bit — like, what if? What if it’s not what we always think it should be? What if I actually break that barrier? We can call the album jazz, but I really try to break that and include other different musical influences in it. For example, instead of doing an acoustic quintet with saxophone and trumpet, I was like, “You know what? Maybe I can just do EWI [electronic wind instrument] instead of saxophone, because I really hear this sound… [or] I want to create a song that is more hip-hop.” You know, really break the expectations of what a jazz album should be. Because nowadays I feel it’s really hard to put music in a specific box.
Image Courtesy: Melissa Isabel Quiñones
