Somni Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest

• 1 Waves Upon Waves 07:39
• 2 As You Are But Not As You Were 10:08
• 3 Chimera 08:14
• 4 Between Worlds 08:08
• 5 Recurrent 13:52
• 6 Drift 05:53
• 7 Only Here and Nowhere Else 06:44
• 8 It Stays With You 10:52
• Total Runtime 01:11:30

Info for Somni

Five-time GRAMMY-winners Snarky Puppy are back with a new album in collaboration with The Metropole Orkest. "Somni" is the first original album from Snarky Puppy since their 2023 GRAMMY-winning album "Empire Central" and features 9 tracks. Snarky Puppy boasts over 200 million streams across releases on DSPs.

Somni is the second collaborative album by Snarky Puppy — the GRAMMY-winning, genre-fluid collective led by bassist-composer Michael League — and Metropole Orkest, the Netherlands-based hybrid ensemble renowned for fusing jazz, classical, and popular music on a symphonic scale. Captured live over three nights (January 17–19, 2025) in Utrecht, the project reunites the two groups a decade after their first joint effort, Sylva — an orchestral suite released in 2015 that earned the GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album the following year. Somni will be released November 21, 2025 via GroundUP Music.

Over more than two decades, Snarky Puppy has cultivated a singular identity rooted in ensemble cohesion and stylistic curiosity. The band now holds five GRAMMY Awards: Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for Sylva (2016), Culcha Vulcha (2017), Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2021), and Empire Central (2023), plus Best R&B Performance for “Something,” their 2014 collaboration with Lalah Hathaway. Known for electrifying live shows and a rotating cast of top-tier players, they continue to bridge jazz, funk, soul, and global traditions.

Metropole Orkest, founded in 1945, is the world’s only full-time orchestra dedicated to jazz and pop music, blending the tonal range of a symphony with the rhythmic agility of a big band. Under the leadership of conductors such as Vince Mendoza and Jules Buckley, the ensemble has collaborated with Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Brian Eno, Gregory Porter, and Jacob Collier, and shared in the GRAMMY win for Sylva alongside Snarky Puppy in 2016.

While Sylva looked outward, painting cinematic portraits of the natural world, Somni turns inward to the intangible realm of dreams. The title comes from the Catalan word for “dream,” reflecting League’s life in Barcelona. He began composing the material in rural Japan, where he spent a month alone in an Airbnb. “I just kind of gave myself a month to write,” he recalls. “It was in the middle of nowhere … completely alone.” Those sketches, shaped by introspection and stillness, were later developed with the full Snarky Puppy lineup — now featuring four drummers — and the 50-plus-member Metropole Orkest. “It’s about diving into a bunch of different elements of this thing that we do every day,” League says, “that nobody understands.”

“Waves Upon Waves,” the album’s opener, became the seed for Somni’s larger concept. League had originally written its theme during the Empire Central sessions but set it aside. “It kind of had this dreamlike quality,” he recalls. The piece gently swells in energy while never fully settling into wakefulness or surrendering to sleep — conjuring the strange tension of drifting between the two.

“As You Are” draws from a familiar dream sensation: recognizing someone you know, even though they appear entirely different. “You know that a person in your dream is your mother, but their face looks like Bill Clinton or something,” League says. That surreal mutability becomes musical as a central phrase passes between instruments, transforming as it goes. “There are these things that exist from the beginning to the end of the song, but they change shape,” he explains — a reflection of dream logic rendered orchestrally.

“Chimera” evokes a mischievous, volatile dream in which the subconscious runs free. “It’s kind of in between a nightmare and a dream where you observe yourself doing things you’re too shy or reserved to do in real life,” League says. The finale layers four grooves — each in a different key and tempo, assigned to different sections of the orchestra and drum set players. “That was by far the hardest thing we did on the whole record,” he notes. “It’s hard for good musicians to not listen to each other.”

“Between Worlds” depicts the transition from waking to sleep. “This tune is like the moment where you're going from the conscious state of mind to the dream state,” League says. He describes the piece as a kind of lullaby with an uneven rhythmic structure, meant to convey the delicate imbalance of that shift. “It has a bit of a lopsidedness … supposed to symbolize this imbalance … of the transition from the world that we all know … into this kind of other world.”

“Recurrent” was inspired by a fever dream League had as a child: running through a field as massive metal gears rolled behind him. “Just at the moment where the first one would start to crush me, I would wake up, soaked in sweat,” he recalls. The track’s momentum is driven by a repeating rhythmic figure that mirrors the terror and relentlessness of the dream. “There would be a moment where I would feel like everything was cool … and then they would appear again.”

“Drift” marks the moment of full immersion in sleep — when the outside world drops away. “It’s like the moment after the Between Worlds moment,” League explains. The music unfolds gradually, with angular melodies and “some strange edges to it,” before the full orchestra enters. “It’s like the feeling of really being carried off into this other bizarre world.”

“Only Here” explores the disorientation of waking from a dream so vivid it temporarily feels real. “I thought I was that person’s partner,” League says. “It took about 10 seconds of being conscious to recognize that my real reality is different than the last eight hours.” The track title refers to the dream state as a world that exists “only here and nowhere else.”

“It Stays With You” captures the emotional afterimage of a dream — that lingering sense of meaning even as the details fall away. “The feeling of it remains,” League says. “Sometimes the dream that I have — by mid-afternoon, it’s still kind of on me in a certain way.” The piece closes the album with that resonance: ephemeral, ungraspable, but deeply felt.

Though entirely instrumental, Somni speaks an emotional language. Each piece explores a different aspect of the dream state: shifting identities, surreal logic, phantom intimacy, and the strange emotional residue that lingers after waking. “Instrumental music lends itself to exploring abstract concepts,” League explains, “because a lack of lyrics allows for a lot of imagination on the part of the listener.” Despite the project’s scale, the experience of making it was unusually seamless.

“It’s by far the most ambitious project we’ve ever done … and it was one of the smoothest records we’ve ever made,” he says. “Every individual team just absolutely did their job with so much care and love — from the camera operators to our production team.” That spirit was reflected in the room. “The instant feedback was the warmest we’ve ever had. It was encouraging to know that after 22 years of doing what we do, the music is reaching people.”

Snarky Puppy
Metropole Orkest
Jules Buckley, conductor

Snarky Puppy
After a decade of relentless touring and recording in all but complete obscurity, the Texas-bred/New York-based quasi-collective suddenly found itself held up by the press and public as one of the major figures in the jazz world. But as the category names for all five of the band’s Grammy® awards would indicate (Best R&B Performance in 2014, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2016, 2017, 2021, and 2023), Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band. It’s not a fusion band, and it’s definitely not a jam band. It’s probably best to take Nate Chinen of the New York Times’ advice, as stated in an online discussion about the group, to “take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.”

Snarky Puppy is a collective of sorts with as many as 25 members in regular rotation. They each maintain busy schedules as sidemen (with such artists as Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and D’Angelo), producers (for Kirk Franklin, David Crosby, and Salif Keïta), and solo artists (many of whom are on the band’s indy label, GroundUP Music). At its core, the band represents the convergence of both black and white American music culture with various accents from around the world. Japan, Argentina, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico all have representation in the group’s membership. But more than the cultural diversity of the individual players, the defining characteristic of Snarky Puppy’s music is the joy of performing together in the perpetual push to grow creatively.

The band was formed by bassist and primary composer Michael League in 2004, starting inconspicuously enough as a group of college friends at the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program. Three years later, a serendipitous intersection with the Dallas gospel and R&B community in Dallas transformed the music into something funkier, more direct, and more visceral. It was at this time that the group absorbed musicians like Robert “Sput” Searight (drums), Shaun Martin (keyboards), and Bobby Sparks (keyboards), and were heavily influenced by legendary keyboardist Bernard Wright (Miles Davis, Chaka Khan, Marcus Miller).

The Metropole Orkest
is known as one of the best orchestras in the world for playing orchestral “music with a groove”. We also play pop, soul, jazz, dance, hip-hop, film and world music. In addition, we are increasingly focusing on connecting these genres.

It’s 1945. The Dutch government and the Royal Family take an important decision from their exile in London. A new orchestra is founded to perform popular music at the highest level, bringing entertainment, hope, and connection to the damaged post-war Dutch society. Top musicians from across Europe were recruited to create a fresh and new sound, resulting in a large orchestra that included a full symphonic string section and big band. Now evolved into the internationally leading pop & jazz orchestra, we still play this role with full conviction: no performing arts institution reaches as many and as diverse groups in society.

Until 2013, the orchestra was funded by the Dutch Broadcasting Corporation. In 2013, the foundation of the Metropole Orkest Foundation was established, marking the first step in its autonomy. In recent times, the Metropole Orkest has taken more responsibility for its own funding and moves forward as a dynamic and independent organisation.

The Metropole Orkest plays pop, jazz, global and everything in between. By excelling in all those genres we are a driving force and pioneer in the development of today’s international musical landscape. Rooted in history as one of the cultural icons of the Netherlands, we embrace cultural diversity. The Metropole Orkest engages in groundbreaking experiments and collaborations. Our music has a profound impact on society, enriching and connecting our audience with creative energy, inspiration and emotion. By investing in the future, we inspire young talent and transfer our knowledge.

The Metropole Orkest, while respecting our heritage, is focused on the future. But whatever we do, with whom we collaborate and for whom we perform, we always do it at the highest possible level, shaping the musical future.

In the words of our chief conductor, Jules Buckley: “The Metropole Orkest is always striving to be a part of the evolution of the modern musical canon, working with the most current and modern artists. We have a responsibility as artists in the modern day to push the envelope, to innovate, to try stuff out and not rest in what we already know. In our hunger for innovation and growth, we’re dedicated to the pursuit of excellence, and that’s the way it should be. You know, nothing should get in the way of the art.” 

Describing eight decades of musical work is a bit much, so here are a few highlights. The Metropole Orkest regularly performs on well-known Dutch music stages such as TivoliVredenburg, Melkweg, and the Concertgebouw, as well as many other venues across the country and neighboring countries. Internationally, the Metropole Orkest is a sought-after guest at major festivals including the BBC Proms and Musikfest Bremen. It is also a regular guest at events like ADE, North Sea Jazz, and the Holland Festival. The orchestra has also performed at Pinkpop, Lowlands, Noorderslag, and the 3FM Awards, making it well known and loved by a younger audience.

The orchestra has shared the stage with legends such as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pat Metheny, Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, and Bono. It also collaborates with contemporary talents like Kovacs, Within Temptation, Snarky Puppy, Gregory Porter, Jacob Collier, Cory Wong, and DOMi & JD BECK. Together with chief conductor Jules Buckley, the orchestra explores the boundaries of contemporary symphonic pop and jazz.

The orchestra releases dozens of recordings each year. In addition to the many concerts, the Metropole Orkest regularly records albums with (inter-)national artists. It has also contributed to thousands of radio and TV broadcasts.

Over the years, Metropole Orkest received no less than 24 Grammy nominations and worked on 4 Grammy-winning productions. Most recently for ‘Best Contemporary Instrumental Album’ in 2016 with Snarky Puppy en in 2020 for the recording of Jacob Collier’s ‘All Night Long’ (Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals).

As the world’s leading pop and jazz orchestra, the Metropole Orkest is always looking to experiment and to be part of spectacular performances. The Metropole Orkest moves audiences. That is, after all, the real purpose of music.

This album contains no booklet.