Asaf Sirkis is known to prog listeners as a drummer, which is what makes Asaf Sirkis Letters worth a news item: it is his first album of original music for solo piano, released digitally on Bandcamp on 11 September 2026. The record is a cycle of twenty-four short, through-composed pieces, and the credits list Sirkis alone, at the piano. Streaming platforms are due to follow in November 2026, according to the press notes I was sent. This is an announcement, not a review: everything below comes from the artist, the label and the Bandcamp page, and I say nothing about how the album sounds beyond what they say.

Asaf Sirkis Letters: the release in brief

Letters is a digital-only release from StonedBird Productions, catalogue number SBPAS006. Bandcamp has carried it since 11 September 2026, with a download offered up to 24-bit/96kHz quality, while the wider streaming release is announced for November 2026. Adding up the track times listed on Bandcamp, the twenty-four pieces run for about 57 minutes in total. The shortest is under two minutes, Book of Letters, and none is longer than three.

Who is Asaf Sirkis

Sirkis is a drummer, composer and bandleader whose career, by his own press notes, spans almost four decades. He plays drums in Soft Machine, the Canterbury jazz-rock band whose records I cover in this site’s guides. The notes also point to a long-running collaboration with reed player and composer Tim Garland and to more than ten years of recording with MoonJune Records. Alongside the public career, he says, he has been composing at the piano for many years, and Letters is where that private body of music comes out.

What the press notes say about the music

According to the notes, the pieces were never written with performance or recording in mind; Sirkis describes them as “letters written over many years”. He presents the album not as a break from his earlier work but as another side of the same commitment to composition and storytelling. The cycle opens with Forebears and closes with Bognago Falls, and in between come titles such as Kaleidoscope, Inaudible Conversation, Book of Letters, Heart of Hearts and Embrace. One detail worth knowing before you search for it: there is no track called Letters on the list, and the nearest is Book of Letters.

Recording and credits

The press notes and the Bandcamp page give the same recording details. Letters was recorded on 3 and 4 February 2026 at Ursa Major Studio in Italy, on a restored 1915 Steinway concert grand piano, which the notes describe as an essential part of the music. Christoph Reiss mixed it at his studio in Germany, it was mastered at Marell Audio Media in Germany, and the artwork is credited to Sylwia Bialas. Sirkis is credited with piano and compositions.

Why a piano album is on a prog site

Short solo piano pieces are a long way from the extended writing most of my readers come here for, and I would not file Letters under progressive rock. I am running it as news because of who made it: Sirkis is a working member of a Canterbury jazz-rock band I have written about at length. It is also the first item in the news section I am starting on Prog Atlas, where I will pass on releases with a clear connection to progressive rock and its neighbours, without pretending they are something they are not.

Where to find Letters

The album can be bought and downloaded on Bandcamp page; the tags on that page include solo piano, contemporary classical, introspective and fusion jazz. More about his work is on his official website. The press notes add that he is releasing a studio performance video of each piece on his YouTube channel, one every Monday.

Go deeper

If you know Sirkis from Soft Machine, start with my Soft Machine starter guide, then move on to the essential Soft Machine albums and the full ranking. For the background to the scene he plays in, read what the Canterbury scene is and how jazz fusion differs from Canterbury.

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