Yelena Eckemoff – Romance of the Moon (2024) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Yelena Eckemoff – Romance of the Moon (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:10 minutes | 1,79 GB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © L & H Production

Pianist, composer and conceptual artist Yelena Eckemoff attempts a slightly different, but no less witty and bold solution with “Romance of the Moon”. A multi-media thinker, Eckemoff has previously made albums that incorporate her visual art as well as stories, poems and concepts from her own imagination. This time, she presents a suite of compositions inspired by the great Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, interpreted by a formidable Italian ensemble that includes bassist Luca Bulgarelli, drummer Stefano Bagnoli, guitarist Riccardo Bertuzzi and world-renowned trumpet icon Paolo Fresu.If this is a departure from projects like Eckemoff’s 2023 work Lonely Man and His Fish, based on her narrative of a human-pet relationship, or 2021’s Adventures of the Wildflower, which traces the life of a single plant, then so be it. “Romance of the Moon” has more in common with Eckemoff’s diptych of albums based on the biblical psalms, 2018’s “Better Than Gold and Silver” and 2022’s “I Am a Stranger in This World.” However, these were written as vocal settings (albeit performed without singers). These new compositions were conceived, written and performed as instrumental music.

This is not to say, however, that Eckemoff’s pieces are any less closely interwoven with the Lorca poems that inspired them. The composer even went so far as to translate the texts into Italian so that her collaborators “know exactly what each composition is about”, she says. “It was that important for them to know exactly what the poem was saying. They are instrumental pieces, but the music still corresponds to the poems.” She translated them into English again so that the listeners could understand them.

Romance of the Moon may be based on poetry, but it still has a dramatic momentum. This is true of the individual tracks – such as Fresu’s taut, tense trumpet line in “Barren Orange Tree” and Bertuzzi’s carefully evolving guitar solo in “Old Lizard” – as well as the album as a whole, which builds from the pensive opener “Bells” through the moody climax of the title track to the evocative, satisfying denouement of “August”. Like Lorca and other great poets, Eckemoff understands the importance of form, both on a macro and micro level.

“Romance of the Moon” is Eckemoff’s first encounter with Fresu, Bulgarelli, Bertuzzi and Bagnoli. “In jazz, the project isn’t finished until it’s recorded with jazz musicians,” she explains. “I design each project so that they can express themselves.” Disciplined and free, these musicians inhabit Eckemoff’s beguiling themes with the distilled intensity of Lorca’s poems.

Tracklist:

1-01. Yelena Eckemoff – Bells (05:53)
1-02. Yelena Eckemoff – Barren Orange Tree (08:14)
1-03. Yelena Eckemoff – Guitar (06:08)
1-04. Yelena Eckemoff – Ballad of the Sea Water (06:12)
1-05. Yelena Eckemoff – About Cats (07:13)
1-06. Yelena Eckemoff – Romance of the Moon (09:08)
1-07. Yelena Eckemoff – Window Nocturnes (05:59)
1-08. Yelena Eckemoff – Diamond (05:56)
1-09. Yelena Eckemoff – Adventurous Snail (04:59)
1-10. Yelena Eckemoff – Thirsty for New Songs (06:02)
1-11. Yelena Eckemoff – Memento (03:36)
1-12. Yelena Eckemoff – Old Lizard (04:41)
1-13. Yelena Eckemoff – August (05:05)

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