Rewind to 2023 and Spiritual World emerged as a label with some deeply dubby, and very much DIY-infused music that immediately caught the ear. That first release included a rewiring of a certain piece of musical history that could easily have missed the mark. Instead it laid down a baseline for a style and ethos that has continued to grow, and mutate, in continually interesting and engaging directions.

Spiritual World has always been about the extended family of musicians and creators who have grown with the label. Founder, N1_SOUND’s own productions and remixes have sat alongside collaborations that have birthed releases as diverse as the post punk angularity of Y’Know to the DeeJay stylings of Ras Munchie. The latter match up set free the ‘Inna DJ Style’ album to the world, which was followed up by flautist and singer Ashleigh Ball’s ‘Centre of the Universe’. An ambitious opus that combined architectural acoustics with musical experimentation, a complete contrast (again) to what had come before. But as each successive release has dropped, the label has thankfully kept that homegrown spirit alive while continuing to expand its ambition and breadth.

So the latest one from Teal came with both expectation and curiosity. What next? Billed as the group’s first album proper, ‘Love Comes Thru’ follows last year’s ‘Original Watercolour’. That 2025 release was a subtle set of electronic inflected soul with a few nods to the dub sensibility that underpins a lot of the label’s output. Maybe a little hint of trip hop if you really wanted to go there, but certainly only by dint of its tempo and atmosphere. The six songs combined organic acoustic sounds with electronic flourishes, but listening back to it now, it could be seen as a stepping stone to the sound of this new record.

Teal are a three piece comprising sisters Ashleigh and Melissa Ball, ably assisted by N1_SOUND on desk duties and intermittent percussion support from Brandon Valdivia. There’s a feeling of catharsis and release across all the tracks here. It’s often understated and subtle, but with a groove and causal energy at its heart. ‘Aries Moon’ has a spacious simplicity, interwoven flute lines with choppy synth stabs, that compliments the liquid vocals nicely. ‘Time is Blind’ ramps up some fourth world wizardry but also amps up the tempo into a more choppy place. ‘Kissing in a Dream’ is all about the bass, head nodding groove present and correct, with some more intersecting synth and vocal chocolate.

‘Change Your Mind’ strips the backing to a skeletal rhythm allowing focus for the emotion at its core. A callout maybe to Watercolour’s ‘Frog Kingdom’? ‘Frog’s Hallow’ provides an instrumental interlude at the midpoint. Swampy vibes across this one. ’Anomaly’ uses some nice crowd effects to amp up the atmosphere into a love song, whose soft edges are deceptive. ‘Slip into Stillness’ fills in some of those spaces on the earlier tracks with a more claustrophobic ambience, before the title track brings back those honeyed vocals for something verging on electro-pop-soul. And on that note, ‘Bubbling’ amps up the synthy soulfulness again to round out this iteration of the group’s sound. Teal chapter two makes for a deeply satisfying listen that’s over too soon. Just waiting for the next episode…

'Love Comes Thru' is available now via Bandcamp.