Features
The New York City Jazz Record (page 7) (December 2024)
The Roulette Tapes (December 2024)
Deutschlandfunk Interview (German) (January 2025)
transient (American Dreams, 2026)
The Wire - James Gormley’s Adventures in Sound and Music July 2026 Playlist
“Despite its cinematic qualities, transient resists narrative. There's no clear progression, only a succession of atmospheres. The effect is disquieting, yet difficult to shake.” Patrick Gamble in The Skinny (full review)
“Lesley Mok’s new album, transient, is so unconcerned with a destination that the music seems to wander infinitely. Textural rhythms move with the cadence of living, building sonic spaces that feel both inhabited and imagined. Emotive undercurrents are woven into blurred, melodic drones and aerated, electronic sequences. The lightness is the invitation, but something heavier holds it in place, the physical weight of an inner life. transient is both grounded and free.” Brad Rose in Foxy Digitalis (full interview)
“It treats structure as something elastic and responsive, allowing each piece to unfold as an environment, asking the listener to participate in shaping meaning through sustained attention rather than genre-based categorization.” -Jordannah Elizabeth Graham-Meyer in JazzTimes (full feature)
The Living Collection (American Dreams, 2023)
The Wire - Editor’s Choice July 2023 Playlist
“Mok deftly maintains the singular balance between the notated and the improvised as well as abstraction and accessibility, thus breaking out of narrow genreist designations, to make music which is urgently relevant.” -All About Jazz (full review)
“Mok has indeed created a living collection through sound. It’s ornate and organic, a living, breathing world.” -Dusted Magazine (full review)
“In her own way, Mok is a progressive-leaning creator whose Living Collection work makes for an auspicious debut. I look forward to listening to what she brings next.” -Jazz Trail (full review)
dream brigade (Infrequent Seams, 2025)
“One thing I like about Lesley on this recording is that her ideas are very deliberate and intentional. It’s not tentative. She has a thing that she’s going for, and it’s intentional. I learned from that. And I’ve been really impressed with everything I’ve heard Phillip do. I think he’s a voice to be reckoned with.” -Terri Lyne Carrington in JazzTimes (full review)
“More impressive than such details is the overall rapport and interaction between Golub and Mok, which goes far beyond sound and rhythm into bracing compositional studies.” -The Wire (full review)
As Mok and Golub explore their duo voice, they develop new perspectives together, stretching instincts in their individual prac- tices. Their choices in the studio might feel momentary, but they’re the result of expanding ideas. And they leave a lasting impression on the artist and the listener.” -Stephanie Jones in Downbeat (full review)
“In their effortless balance and the acuity of their ideas, Mok and Golub prove to be an inspired pairing.” -David Adler in JazzTimes (full review)
15 Questions (full interview)
PostGenre interview (full interview)
“It remains rooted in tradition while making a persuasive case for its limitless elasticity. It puts the final stamp on a striking debut on which the personalities are as important as the instrumentation.” -John Sharpe in All About Jazz (full review)
A Reflection Distorts Over Water (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)
Camila Nebbia / Marilyn Crispell / Lesley Mok - A Reflection Distorts Over Water (NYCJR’s Best of 2025)
“The music unroll syncopated fragments, interchanged with semi-circular textures, everything is essential, smoothly balanced the tasks of piano and percussion, never self-indulgent, not a single sequence is wasted, stripped down but not algid and aseptic, on the contrary warm, emotional and ardent: call it a labour of love.” -Ferruccio Martinotti (full review)
“My appreciation for Mok grows each time I hear her, and this release is no exception. Her style is focused on spontaneous physicality rather than predetermined grooves.” (full review)
“In function, “Longing”, drummer Lesley Mok’s sole composer credit on A Reflection Distorts Over Water—a trio album with Camila Nebbia (tenor) and Marilyn Crispell (piano)—is at least as much a composition as it is a step in their shared process. It starts off this new release’s second half, its title laying bare the emotion, and it’s an achingly beautiful piece, beginning with bowed cymbals and a slow piano melody, subtly underscored by soft saxophone tones.” -Kurt Gottschalk
Other press
“Lesley Mok has become an in-demand accompanist due to the compositional consciousness they bring to their drumming. Their precise deployment of pitches solidifies the unusual tunings (and consequently complex sonorities) of the Shimmer Wince combo, led by woodwind artist Anna Webber, and their command of dynamics guides the precise maneuvers of the Fire & Water Quintet as it navigates the suite-size forms of bandleader Myra Melford. Even in mostly improvisational contexts such as A Reflection Distorts Over Water (Relative Pitch), a splendid 2025 collaboration with Camila Nebbia and Marilyn Crispell, they’re as much an agent of cohesion as of color.” -Bill Meyer, The Chicago Reader (full article)
“Mok stood out for her expansive curiosity, rigor in artistic practice, and embrace of different practices -- not only making provocative and authentic connections, but also playing with and deepening our understanding of form and expression.” -Elena Park (full review)
“I realized how good Mok is at tackling unconventional grooves and bringing an almost orchestral approach to the music; the depth they bring to “Squirmy,” for example, is astonishing. The thorny harmonic trappings almost seem to liberate Webber.” -Peter Margasak on Anna Webber’s Shimmer Wince (full review)
“The ultra-limber quartet, made up of Brooklyn avant-garde underground powerhouses Shara Lunon (voice, electronics), Chris Williams (trumpet, electronics), Luke Stewart (electric bass, electronics) and Lesley Mok (drums, percussion) deftly compose, improvise and rattle off an explosive din collectively as a locked-in group guided by a singular ethos and a telepathic chemistry. History Dog’s Root Systems is all that and more, a remarkable debut that is on a whole other level of sonic and spiritual depth.” —Treble Staff on History Dog’s Root Systems (full review)
“It is often Lesley Mok who determines the mood of the piece by weighing each of her gestures, often galvanized by the directions taken by the saxophone and the gayageum, often evolving in parallel. Chief colorist, Mok is eager for details and the ephemeral.” -Citizen Jazz on David Leon’s Bird’s Eye (full review)
“They work with an orchestral sensibility while retaining a truly elastic sense of time, and it’s integral in subtly propelling this piece.” -Peter Margasak on Camila Nebbia’s La Permanencia de los Ecos (full review)
“Her playing teetered between haunted quietude and boisterousness, branching out from barely-there rings to uncanny buzzes and robotic vocals. Her music felt sparse despite all the activity, and her tools were part of what made it so intriguing.” -I Care If You Listen on Mok’s solo set (Joe’s Pub, 2022) (full review)