Drafts 1, 2 & 3 is a three-part project by Kourosh Oliver Floyd Adhamy. The albums were self-produced, with Adhamy composing, recording, and producing the material independently. The three volumes were released on Spotify in 2016, before the full project was made available on Bandcamp. The work reflects a period of exploration following his studies in music and a year spent in Bali, where he engaged with traditional Indonesian music.

Note: This review was originally published in 2016 on Archaicpop.com, before the launch of Bestofjazz.org. At the time, the editorial line covered a broader range of music beyond jazz.

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Three albums that pull you in almost immediately. Electronic in texture, yes, but also melodic, patient, almost contemplative in the way traditional music can be. All three Drafts feel like they sit right at that intersection.

We don’t know much about Kourosh, but what we do know comes from a short exchange: after studying music in Plymouth, he spent a year in Bali. That is where things seem to have shifted. He immersed himself in traditional music, especially the Gamelan.

If that name rings a bell, it might be because Claude Debussy was famously struck by it during the Exposition Universelle of 1889: its tonal colors, its layered rhythms, its sense of space.

Kourosh clearly felt something similar.

A learning process… or something more

Back in the United Kingdom, he kept composing, this time leaning into electronics and using production to explore. These albums are presented as Drafts, as if they were just sketches.

But that label feels almost misleading. What we hear is much more: traditional influences filtered through electronic processes, and at times, something close to a jazz mindset. Not in form, but in spirit. The music unfolds through variations, small shifts, subtle mutations. It is constantly reworking its own material. And yet, it never feels complex for the sake of it. Quite the opposite.

There is something almost deceptive about how simple it sounds at first. Pick any track—out of the 35—and you will notice it quickly: nothing is lightweight. Every piece has something that catches your ear and keeps it there.

If the first track works for you, chances are the rest will too, because it keeps developing the same core ideas in ways that feel both coherent and unpredictable. So, if we may make a comparison, it really could remind you of a TV series. Not something with a clear arc and resolution, but something more immersive. Each track feels like an episode. A variation on what made you stay in the first place.

Like a series you don’t want to stop

Each “episode” introduces new sounds, new textures, new ideas. Some elements appear briefly and disappear, almost like characters that don’t quite belong. Others come back later, more subtly, and you start recognizing them. You begin to anticipate, to notice, to connect.

That is one of the album’s real strengths: it keeps you engaged without ever forcing it. There is always something shifting, something evolving, just enough to make you listen a little closer.

You can think of Drafts 1, 2 & 3 as three seasons. Each one holds together, each track feels placed with care. And yet, something unexpected: we also enjoyed listening to it on shuffle. Which is rare. It brings distant tracks closer. It highlights the variations differently. It reshapes the experience without breaking it. There is no real “ending” here, no resolution you are building toward. It could stop here. It could continue.

But the third part feels like the right place to pause. Because by then, you already feel like going back to the beginning… just to experience it all over again.

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