Formed c. 2005

The Circling Sun is a New Zealand jazz collective formed in the mid-2000s from a community of record collectors, DJs and music producers based in Aotearoa. The group's primary songwriter and drummer is Julien Dyne, also a member of The Lahaar; the ensemble includes keyboardists Guy Harrison and Cory Champion, who also play in Clear Path Ensemble, alongside a saxophone section, harp, and a choir made up of mostly Pacific Island and Māori singers whose participation reflects an acknowledgement of Aotearoa's own cultural traditions alongside the American spiritual jazz lineage the band inhabits. Their debut "Spirits" (Soundway, 2023), released on the London-based global jazz label Soundway Records, drew from Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane with Latin rhythms and a spacious ensemble dynamic. "Orbits" (Soundway, 2025) extended the approach into electronics, adding Prophet synthesisers and modular electronics to the acoustic instrumentation while shifting the period references to the mid-1970s: Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef's Atlantic recordings and the Brazilian jazz of Azymuth and Airto Moreira inform the album's denser, more groove-oriented sound.