With a song-centred debut album featuring arrangements and original compositions, the transparent, reserved music of Szelest, the trio of Ronny Graupe, Lucia Cadotsch and Kit Downes, is shaped by Cadotsch's Speak Low trio on one side and the world of contemporary jazz on the other. Although the members of the trio have known each other for a long time from different bands, and all three have made their home in Berlin, Szelest is the first band in which they perform together.

Lucia Cadotsch, winner of the Echo Prize in 2017 and the Deutscher Jazzpreis in 2021, is best known for her trio Speak Low, with which she has performed both arrangements and original compositions, and which has proved to be a defining staple not only in her singing career but also regarding the meditative, poetic atmosphere of Szelest. Szelest is a Polish onomatopoeic word for “rustle”, whether it is the sound of the sea or the leaves of trees in the wind.

Together with guitarist Ronny Graupe, one of the leading musicians of German jazz's middle generation, they played in the band Yellow Bird, mixing indie and folkjazz with avant-garde, then formed a duo during the epidemic. Later they invited the pianist Kit Downes, who had been a keen follower of Graupe's activities since Hyperactive Kid and Cadotsch's partner in the band Aki, among others.

Ronny Graupe has previously appeared on BMC Records albums by Dejan Terzić's Melanoia, and qÖÖlp, a band with the Ceccaldi brothers, as well as on two albums in Hans Lüdemann's On the Edges series. Kit Downes has released a recording with the trio Shadowlands, formed with fellow musicians Robin Fincker and Lauren Kinsella, and has two more BMC albums in preparation.