Acclaimed saxophonist, rapper and composer Soweto Kinch will release Soundtrack to the Apocalypse via LSO Records on Friday 20 November – the first recording of his landmark work with the London Symphony Orchestra, captured live at its world premiere at the Barbican in November 2025. The album documents the third and final instalment of Kinch’s acclaimed trilogy of works created with the London Symphony Orchestra.
The release follows Kinch’s return to the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, where he performs music from his complete trilogy of orchestral works – The Black Peril, White Juju and Soundtrack to the Apocalypse. Together, the album and concert celebrate a six-year artistic partnership that has produced one of the most ambitious cross-genre projects in contemporary British music.
Beginning with The Black Peril (2019), inspired by the racial violence that followed the First World War, and continuing with White Juju (2022), a response to lockdown, the Black Lives Matter movement and Britain’s increasingly polarised political landscape, Kinch’s trilogy of orchestral works has cemented his reputation as one of Britain’s most distinctive compositional voices, seamlessly blending jazz, hip hop, orchestral music and social commentary.
Rather than presenting apocalypse as catastrophe, Kinch reclaims its original Greek meaning – “to uncover” or “to reveal” – using music to expose uncomfortable truths while searching for the possibility of renewal. Structured as a continuous musical journey, Soundtrack to the Apocalypse reflects the fractured pace of contemporary life while asking urgent questions about politics, technology, race and our collective future.
“I’m not interested in music as noise to consume while ignoring the world,” says Kinch. “It has always been bound up with liberation, testimony and truth-telling.”
On Thursday 19 November, as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, Kinch returns to the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra to present Trilogy – a special concert bringing together The Black Peril (2019), White Juju (2022) and Soundtrack to the Apocalypse for the first time.
Reflecting on the project, Kinch says:
“I’ve been on an intense journey, playing with and subverting tropes, gaining confidence in my own compositional voice but also discovering new approaches to storytelling with each commission.”
Captured live at its world premiere, Soundtrack to the Apocalypse stands as the definitive recording of the final chapter in Kinch’s acclaimed trilogy with the London Symphony Orchestra. The album preserves the scale, urgency and ambition of a work that brings together jazz, hip hop, spoken word and symphonic composition in a powerful reflection on the challenges of the modern world and the enduring possibility of renewal.
Track Listing – Soundtrack to the Apocalypse:
Coming Together
The Day After Tomorrow
Justice
Apocalypse
Journeying
Apocalypse Coda
Metronomes
Climbing
Foreshadowing
The End of the World
Core Sicker
Kalimba
Grand Finale
Epilogue
World Peace