A Touch of Radiance

Giuseppe Piacentino for Musica Jazz, Italy

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AUTHOR

Yelena Eckemoff

TITLE OF THE DISC

«A Touch Of Radiance» 
«In The Shadow Of A Cloud» (two CDs)

LABEL

L & H Production

 

 

Certainly jazz has never had a character like Yelena Eckemoff. Born in Moscow, where she has been subjected to a strict education in classical music (she is the daughter of a pianist) from a very young age, she moved to New York in 1991, then before the Soviet Union dissolved, and sanctioned his entry into jazz with the publication in 2009 of a cd in trio (with Mads Vinding and Peter Erskine ). Since then she has released eleven discs produced by herself and published by a label she is the founder with her husband.

We can deduce that she enjoys the right economic resources, also because the groups she has gathered have almost always been all-stars: just think that in “A Touch Of Radiance” Turner, Locke, Mraz and Hart play, while the double CD “In The Shadow Of A Cloud » aligns Potter, Rogers, Gress and Cleaver. We can add that the paintings of Yelena are on the cover of the CD and that her poems accompany the booklets – sometimes enriched by family photos – the pieces of music, of course composed by her. If you have some prejudices, please put it aside: Yelena is a jazz musician with flakes, as shown by her beautiful records that underline, song by song, the art of creating expectations or tensions.

Imagine something very close to the so-called “ECM aesthetic” added to the ability that John Lewis had to go often beyond the theme / solo formula to develop music, instead, in a theatrical way, with steps from one musician to another, rebounds and a strong sense of melody as a compass. In Lewis, the leader has the elegant trait, both as an author and as a pianist, both in melancholy tales and in those where the pleasure of the game is more marked.

Choosing between these two disks is impossible: to resume comparisons and use them roughly,  “A Touch Of Radiance”  is more ECM while “In The Shadow Of A Cloud” is more lewisiano, but both reserve delights and surprises. As I write, some of the three CDs announced for the two year period 2018-19 could already be released, with musicians like Manu Katché , Peter Erskine, Paul McCandless and Arild Andersen . After all, Stakhanov was also a Soviet …

Piacentino

 

DISTRIBUTOR

IRD

TRAINING

Yelena Eckemoff (p.), Mark Turner , Chris Potter (ten.), Joe Locke (vib.), Adam Rogers (chit.), George Mraz, Drew Gress (cb.), Gerald Cleaver , Billy Hart (batt.) .

REGISTRATION DATE

 New York, 2014 and 2017.

Original Italian:

AUTORE

Yelena Eckemoff

TITOLO DEL DISCO

«A Touch Of Radiance»
«In The Shadow Of A Cloud» (due cd)

ETICHETTA

L & H Production

Di certo il jazz non ha mai avuto un personaggio come Yelena Eckemoff. Nata a Mosca, dove è stata sottoposta sin dalla più tenera età a una ferrea educazione nella musica classica (è figlia di una pianista), si è trasferita a New York nel 1991, quindi prima che si dissolvesse l’Unione Sovietica, e ha sancito il suo ingresso nel jazz con la pubblicazione nel 2009 di un cd in trio (con Mads Vinding e Peter Erskine). Da allora ha realizzato ben undici dischi da lei stessa prodotti e pubblicati da un’etichetta della quale è fondatrice assieme al marito.

Si può dedurre che goda delle giuste disponibilità economiche, anche perché i gruppi da lei riuniti sono stati quasi sempre delle all stars: basti pensare che in «A Touch Of Radiance» suonano Turner, Locke, Mraz e Hart, mentre il doppio cd «In The Shadow Of A Cloud»allinea Potter, Rogers, Gress e Cleaver. Possiamo aggiungere che i dipinti di Yelena fanno da copertina dei cd e che le sue poesie accompagnano nei libretti – a volte arricchiti dalle foto di famiglia – i brani musicali, ovviamente da lei composti. Se per quanto detto avete qualche pregiudizio, mettetelo da parte: Yelena è una jazzista coi fiocchi, come dimostrano questi due bellissimi dischi che ne sottolineano, brano per brano, l’arte di creare attese oppure tensioni.

Immaginate qualcosa di molto vicino alla cosiddetta «estetica ECM» sommata a quella capacità che aveva John Lewis di andare spesso oltre la formula tema/assolo per sviluppare la musica, invece, in modo teatrale, con passaggi da un musicista all’altro, rimpalli e un ferreo senso della melodia come bussola. Di Lewis la leader ha il tratto elegante, sia come autrice sia come pianista, sia nei racconti malinconici sia in quelli dove è più marcato il piacere del gioco.

Scegliere fra questi due dischi è impossibile: per riprendere i paragoni e usarli in modo forse grossolano, «A Touch Of Radiance» è più ECM mentre «In The Shadow Of A Cloud» è più lewisiano, ma entrambi riservano delizie e sorprese. Mentre scrivo potrebbe già essere in uscita qualcuno dei tre cd annunciati per il biennio 2018-19, con musicisti come Manu Katché, Peter Erskine, Paul McCandless e Arild Andersen. Del resto, Stakanov era sovietico anche lui…

Piacentino

 

DISTRIBUTORE

IRD

FORMAZIONE

Yelena Eckemoff (p.), Mark Turner, Chris Potter (ten.), Joe Locke (vib.), Adam Rogers (chit.), George Mraz, Drew Gress (cb.), Gerald Cleaver, Billy Hart (batt.).

DATA REGISTRAZIONE

 New York, 2014 e 2017.

Recensione
Voto globale
Sommario
5

Punteggio complessivo
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Vittorio Lo Conte for Music Zoom

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After the trio outings, Russian pianist Yelena Eckemoff came to this quintet disk, which is a small masterpiece on which we gladly return, because every new listening bring out details that may have escaped – in a solo, or melody, or in the structure that the pianist gives to the composition, and in the quality of performance. Together with her she rhythm with the bass of George Mraz and Billy Hart’s drum. Completing the band is two of the best-known jazz musicians, jazz blues Joe Locke and Mark Turner at the tenor sax. There are ten songs each with a moment of inspiration from the pianist, both literary in the poems within the booklet and the musical. But even for the passionate participation of musicians in the project, everything sounds very compact, as if the musicians had always been together. There is a surprising total empathy with the Russian musician’s musical world. Her compositions are rather complex, always rich in ideas and details that go far from nothing and add that something special that makes this work a unique experience. She takes solos, but leaves a lot of room for her sideman, a well-structured space on which never-missed interventions emerge. In Encouragement both Turner and Joe Locke have sublime moments inspired by a melodious composition. The same goes for Radiance.

Original Italian:

Dopo le incisioni in trio la pianista russa Yelena Eckemoff è arrivata a questo disco in quintetto che è un piccolo capolavoro su cui ci si ritorna volentieri perché ad ogni nuovo ascolto vengono fuori particolari che ci si era lasciati sfuggire, l’attenzione ad esempio si sposta su un assolo o su una melodia o sulla costruzione che la pianista ha dato alla composizione ed allo svolgimento dell’esecuzione. Insieme a lei la ritmica con il contrabbasso di George Mraz e la batteria di Billy Hart. A completare la band due dei musicisti più conosciuti del jazz contemporaneo, il vibrafonista Joe Locke e Mark Turner al sax tenore. Sono dieci brani ognuno con alle spalle un momento di ispirazione della pianista, sia dal punto di vista letterario nelle poesie all’interno del booklet, che musicale. Ma, anche per l’appassionata partecipazione dei musicisti al progetto, suona tutto molto compatto, come se i musicisti fossero stati da sempre insieme. C’è un’empatia totale sorprendente con il mondo musicale della pianista russa. Le sue composizioni sono piuttosto complesse, sempre ricche di idee e di particolari che spuntanto dal nulla ed aggiungono quel qualcosa di speciale che rende questa lavoro un’esperienza unica. Lei prende degli assoli, ma lascia molto spazio ai suoi sideman, uno spazio ben strutturato su cui spuntano degli interventi mai scontati. In Encouragement sia Turner che Joe Locke hanno dei momenti sublimi, ispirati da una composizione con un bella melodia. Lo stesso vale per Radiance.

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Witty for Amazon.de

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5.0 stars out of 5

Eckemoff also shows her skills as a Qunitett in the interplay with the jazz-greats Mark Turner; Joe Locke, George Mraz and Billy Hart; conjures up A Touch of Radiance – 10 small masterpieces of outstanding improvisational art. High jazz school of a woman who – you believe it hardly – has already released albums for 20 years. Hopefully,
she soon enjoys the broadest recognition which she no doubt deserves.

Original German:

5.0 von 5 Sternen

Auch als Qunitett zeigt Eckemoff ihr Können im Zusammenspiel mit den Jazzgrößen Mark Turner; Joe Locke, George Mraz und; Billy Hart zaubert sie auf A Touch of Radiance 10 kleine Meisterwerke von überragender Improvisationskunst. Hohe Jazzschule einer Frau die – man glaubt es kaum – bereits seit 20 Jahren Alben veröffentlicht. Hoffentlich geniesst sie bald breiteste Anerkennnung welche ihr ohne Zweifel zusteht.

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Tyran Grillo for All About Jazz

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It’s fulfilling to hear an artist evolve. In this regard, Yelena Eckemoff has heeded callings definable only by the language of the spirit. The Russian-born pianist and composer comes from a rigorous classical background, and within those parameters has shaped a quiet yet assured corpus of jazz albums stretching back to 2006’s The Call. Since then she has assembled numerous ad hoc bands, caressing ebonies and ivories alongside Arild Andersen, Marilyn Mazur, Peter Erskine, and many other established names in the field. On A Touch of Radiance she finds herself in the supernal company of tenorist Mark Turner, vibraphonist Joe Locke, bassist George Mraz, and drummer Billy Hart. As the self-styled Yelena Eckemoff Quintet, they forge an astonishingly delicate soundscape.

Recorded at New York’s legendary Avatar Studios and averaging seven minutes each, the album’s ten originals show Eckemoff to be a democratic catalyst. Her atmospheres possess integrity, not least of all for their intimation. As such, titles like “Reminiscence” and “Exuberance” are no mere descriptors, but reflections of more complex emotional states. (True to form, Eckemoff provides a poem in the CD booklet for each respective track.) “Affection,” for one, is not as dulcet as one might expect, but ruminates in shadows, chromatic dissonances, and treats memory not as a canvas but as underdeveloped film. Turner brings a river’s flow to this unusual tune, contrasting with Locke’s brighter energies. “Pep,” for another, sparks even more idiosyncratic flames. These flicker through Eckemoff’s playing, which here achieves gnarled brilliance. Turner emotes in striations, not pillars, and again shares lovely crosstalk with Locke’s mallets.

None of which is to say there aren’t any overtly programmatic moments. Tracks such as “Reminiscence,” “Exuberance,” and “Radiance” are exactly what they purport to be. The first of these is notable for Hart’s pastel monologue, the second for Mraz’s foundry, and the third for Eckemoff’s raindrop pianism, sparkling and free. And all of them are shuttled through a loom of childhood memory and innocent wanderings through pastures to which one becomes blind in adulthood.

Other tunes float somewhere in between, achieving deepest insight in the album’s zenith, “Reconciliation.” Not only is it Eckemoff’s finest studio achievement, but its dovetailing of melody, mood, and magic draws her collaborators into some inspired being. Turner in particular gives the breadth of his abilities to small worlds through effortless unpacking, making of them universes unto themselves.

Of the bandleader’s own playing we are treated to tasteful selections in the set’s most somber turns. In the melting snow of “Imagination” and more impressionistic “Tranquility,” her touch remains gentle and unobtrusive, forever invested in the beauty of the everyday. As in the album’s opener, “Inspiration,” she finds greatest happiness in exactly that.

Whether occupying foreground or background, she is the gentle adhesive that sticks every finished photo into the emerging diary. For that’s exactly what this album feels like: a familiar volume to the clasp of which each musician adds ornament, able to be unlocked only by a listener’s curiosity.

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Peter Bacon for The Jazz Breakfast

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This is the sixth album by the classical pianist from the Soviet Union who moved to the U.S. in the ’90s and turned to jazz. Down the years Yelena has always had a fine ear for collaborators – in her trio they have included Peter Erskine, Marilyn Mazur and Arild Andersen – and this time around she expands the personnel to a quintet.

And what a quintet! Mark Turner is on tenor saxophone, Joe Locke on vibraphone, George Mraz on double bass and Billy Hart on drums.

All the music is composed by Eckemoff and she has started to link the tunes to poems in the CD booklet. As she explained to me: “since my music is based on my feelings, thoughts, experiences and imagination… I think reading these notes helps to understand what my music is about and what I try to express.”

The poems are as evocative as the music. Take Reminiscence, for example. Yelena sets a mood with her introductory chords, and Turner and Locke take it up. The melody and harmony feel simultaneously of a past era – perhaps a Romantic classical one? – and also thoroughly present. And the poem begins seemingly in the present with a description of a room but soon becomes a memory from Yelena’s childhood.

The way in which the pianist and composer feeds her classical music heritage into a modern jazz situation is fascinating, and it gives her compositions a really solid structure, while also expanding the musical elements the soloists have to work with. Written interludes come and go within the freer sections, with the transitions marvelously smooth. I suspect it moves these jazz players slightly out of their comfort zone, and the results really do sound most original.

Each piece has a single word title – Inspiration, Exuberance, Pep, Affection, Tranquility, Imagination… The one that I think best exemplifies Yelena Eckemoff’s music is the final one, which also forms part of the album title: Radiance. The poem that accompanies it is a light and dark tale of a moth attracted to the danger of a night light, but it then becomes about the coming of dawn, the moth replaced by a butterfly. The music has a steady development to it, with both dark and light sonorities.

Like the rest of the album, it has an internal gleam which draws – and warms – both the players and the listener.

  1. Festive 50 – Numbers 40-31 | thejazzbreakfast #36
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Tom Greenland for New York Jazz Record

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Pianist Yelena Eckemoff is a major jazz talent yet to receive the critical attention she deserves. Soviet-born, trained in one of the country’s finest conservatory, she took time off from music to raise her family and then fled the USSR with her husband, finally returning to music in midlife with formidable technique and ample life experiences to convey. “A Touch of Radiance is her 14th release of what she calls “original instrumental music,” an inapt label for her genre-defying style, which combines the harmonic textures and compositional rigor of European classical music with the indeterminacy of jazz. Joined by the stellar team of Mark Turner (tenor sax), Joe Locke (vibes), George Mraz (bass) and Billy Hart (drums), Eckemoff leads her group through a moody suite of songs, many with compelling melodies performed at floating tempos over arrangements that deemphasize solo statements in favor of group interchange. Locke’s vibraphone, for example, often plays intertwining minimalist loops and Eckemoff ‘s accompaniments contain many ideas that could stand on their own. Turner, a powerful voice in his own right, is heard to great effect on cuts like “Pep,” “Reconciliation” (one of Eckemoff’s most memorable compositions) and “Radiance,” where, confined to shorter statements that complement t the song structures, he nevertheless makes his presence felt.

Eckemoff gave an album release show last month at Jazz Standard supported by a revamped quartet: Mraz, Donny McCaslin taking over tenor sax duties and Eric McPherson sitting in on drums. Prominently displayed center-stage was Eckemoff’s lurid painting of a sunset that graces the album cover. The set featured seven of the album’s ten tracks, sounding a bit more like a blowing session than the formal atmosphere of the recording. Live, Eckemoff showed herself to be an imaginative if somewhat introverted soloist.  Like Turner, McCaslin is a powerful  stylist, taking consistently strong solos that invariably  evoked  crowd responses, especially on “Pep” and “Imagination”, though other  times the audience was more subdued, lulled perhaps by the ebb and flow of  Eckemoff’s compositions.

Tom Greenland for New York Jazz Record

Jazz Standard performance annotation by Carol Banks Weber for AXS

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Russian pianist and composer Yelena Eckemoff usually performs in a quiet, intimate trio setting for her exquisite modern, nature-centric jazz. But for her new album, A Touch Of Radiance, she expanded into a quintet, adding vibist Joe Locke and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner to the piano-bass-drums. She also expanded on her theme of finding solace in the safety and warmth of humanizing interpretations, the equivalent of a soul-satisfying hug while it storms outside.

For her August 12 CD release launch at New York City’s Jazz Standard, Eckemoff will introduce A Touch Of Radiance, track by loving track. “We’ll be playing exclusively the material from the new album,” she explained, yesterday.

Eckemoff brings a quartet to pull off the quintet-led recording, just for the CD party, with a few surprises. “For this performance, I have recruited Grammy-nominated saxophonist Donny McCaslin and lyrical drummer Eric McPherson. Bassist George Mraz, who plays on my new album, will also perform with me that night,” she described. “The quartet will offer an exciting contrast to the quintet sound on the album, and I am looking forward to exploring the different angles of the same music in this lineup. I absolutely love the sound and interpretation we have created on the CD, but the live performance with this all-star quartet group will be a nice alternative to the CD.”

McCaslin (Steps Ahead) is a bold addition to the quartet. The New York City-based musician’s own album, Casting For Gravity, features him on tenor sax, taking huge bites out of the groove, in total beast mode.

McPherson is another bold addition, having come from the school of master percussionist Michael Carvin and the Hartt School of Music’s Jackie McLean Institute on full scholarship. He benefitted greatly from the tutelage of a host of famous jazz percussionists (Max Roach, Freddie Waits) who knew his professional dancer/choreographer mom Saundra.

They join veteran bassist Mraz, who always comes ready with a full-bodied, voluptuous sound. The Czech Republic-born Mraz has an ear for the lyrical, which served him well when he arrived in Boston to attend the Berklee School of Music in 1968, and a year later, to play with Dizzy Gillespie’s band in New York. After Gillespie, it was onto Oscar Peterson, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, and Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Tommy Flanagan.

Growing up in Moscow with loving parents, Eckemoff, their only child, learned early on to appreciate the beauty in everyday things, her picture books and her classical music, her pet Desi, her father’s poetic way with greetings, nature — sometimes harsh but always balanced by the warmth of a loving home. The classically gifted Eckemoff also learned to value the freedom of a free-form jazz, because back in those days, her country’s restrictive ironclad rule forbade such luxuries.

At the height of her creativity, she found like-minded musicians who were also activists. They hung out in a jazz studio founded by some of those activists who could play. There, she and her colleagues hungrily absorbed as much traditional jazz as they could lay their hands on. Those jazz principles would fuel her into breaking away as a most original artist with something to say and a unique style with which to say it.

By the time she and her husband were finally able to leave Moscow and live in the U.S. — first on their own, then back with their children — she was ready to turn her love of jazz and her knowledge of classical music into her very own signature.

Jack Goodstein for Blog Critics

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In a music scene that seems to privilege musicians who fit into easily definable categories, identifiable genres, when that rare artist comes along who defies easy categorization, that artist might well find herself on the outside looking in. If it’s too difficult to define what she’s doing, the easy way out is simply to ignore her.

So when a musical power broker like iTunes identifies the latest release from pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff and her quintet, A Touch of Radiance, as “alternative,” while others see what she does as jazz (jazz perhaps touched with a classical feel) it becomes essential to define what seems to be going on in the album. And what is going on is a programmatic description of the composer’s emotional journey in a soundscape transfused with the varied elements of her musical vocabulary – jazz and classical. Like many a great musical piece, A Touch of Radiance is touched with literary inspiration, often from an outside source, often, as is the case here, from within. All 10 of the tracks on the album are accompanied by short poems written by Eckemoff and aimed at clarifying the composition’s programmatic intent.

“Inspiration” opens what is in effect a suite and serves as a prelude to the rest of the album. The almost mystical spirituality of the piece is a clear indication of what is to come. Running almost 10 minutes, it focuses on the sense of magic that produces art – the other worldliness of creation, as well as its role in the musician’s life. The “walking stones” that “form a pathway” through life, she realizes, “can be easily rearranged/Into the pattern of a piano keyboard.”

“Reminiscence,” Exhuberance,” and “Affection” take the composer back to her childhood, her joys and her fears, and they are all there in the poems as well as in the music. “Pep” finds the older woman, now a mother “Washing and line-drying all day, cooking./Mixing and warming up milk, feeding:/Playing with the baby,” but still “playing the piano.” “Imagination” looks to the wonder of a love even capable of finding joy in a blizzard, while “Reconciliation” and “Encouragement” look to the stresses that it must overcome. “Tranquility” develops the artist’s ability to tune out the world, while “Radiance” ends the cycle with the blissful joy of nature, the “daytime butterfly” which doesn’t try to “reach the sun” content with it lighting “her way to the flowers she feeds from.” In a sense, it is the daytime butterfly that is the true artist.

Eckemoff, who in the past has worked with a trio, has enlarged her ensemble which now has Mark Turner playing tenor sax, Joe Locke on vibraphone, George Mraz on double bass, and Billy Hart on drums. It is a tight group that seems to thoroughly buy into the composer’s aesthetic, and the result is a finely-tuned, unified album.

Notreble.com

Double bassist George Mraz, known for his work with a slew of jazz greats (Oscar Peterson, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, and Carmen McRae, just to name a few) has lent his talents to pianist Yelena Eckemoff’s latest, A Touch of Radiance.

The album, which is attributed to the Yelena Eckemoff Quartet, is the first to feature Eckemoff playing in more than a trio. With a background in both classical music and jazz, her vision is a singular and challenging one.

“She has her own thing – it is not a copy of another person’s music like you run into almost all the time,” Mraz said.

Delarue for New York Music Daily

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Pianist Yelena Eckemoff inhabits the eerie netherworld somewhere between jazz, classical and film music. Russian-born, classically trained, jazz-inclined, she’s one of this era’s most individualistic and instantly recognizable artists. Her back catalog is full of icily intense, glacial themes that are the essence of noir. She’s got a new album, A Touch of Radiance, which raises the luminosity factor to the level of the aurora borealis…maybe. She and the band on the album are playing the release show at the Jazz Standard at 7:30 and 9:30 PM on August 12; cover is $20 and well worth it (and the venue has delicious food).

Eckemoff has assembled a brave choice of supporting cast. Vibraphonist Joe Locke is one of the most gripping, intense players in all of jazz and one of the standout soloists in Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans rarities band. Drummer Billy Hart is the motive force behind the Cookers, arguably the best postbop jazz group alive. Tenor sax player Mark Turner can play anything but is inclined toward the avant garde: he’s got a Jazz Standard gig coming up in September and an album out on ECM. Bassist George Mraz has a checkered past and does a lot to redeem himself here. There’s ostensibly an autobiographical tangent to the album, although the songs and the moods drift from it – which makes it all the more interesting.

The opening track starts with a morosely twinkling intro that quickly morphs into a strolling swing groove that still has Eckemoff looking over her shoulder: the trouble is not over yet, and the pairing with Locke’s vibraphone magnifies the eerie glimmer a thousand times over. It’s a brilliant touch that fits Eckemoff to a T (anybody remember that Twin Peaks movie theme that Locke did with Bill Mays?). They go back to creepy at the end.

The album’s second cut blends blues into Eckemoff’s wounded, shattered motives, Turner taking a pensively hazy solo early on, Mraz driving a dubwise pulse until Eckemoff decides to go for a bit of a bluesy swing before turning it over to Locke, who teams with Hart and says the hell with sadness. But then Hart brings back the sepulchral gloom, all by himself! Who would have thought he had it in him?

Track three is a very effective small-group take on Gil Evans bossa noir. Any exuberance here is credit to Turner, Locke seizing the chance to take it back into the shadows even while the band is quietly swinging. The fourth cut evokes Frank Carlberg at his most evilly phantasmagorical (like on his amazing Tivoli Trio album): this time, everybody is in it, Turner leading the way, Locke close behind. If this is love, then we’re all doomed.

The next cut bounces along heavily. As a cross-genre mashup, it’s sort of the jazz equivalent of a Finnish surf rock song, Eckemoff and Turner jumping at the chance to leap through a series of minor changes and an absolutely creepy, jungly rhythmic thicket. After that, the band sways and swooshes with a Baltic chill through a shapeshifting waltz. The following track is hilarious: ponderous funk and then disco, on this otherwise brutally serious album? The band keeps a poker face all the way through.

Track eight, Tranquility (song titles are an afterthought in the Eckemoff book) has Turner and Locke hinting at balminess before Eckemoff brings it down to earth. It’s a cool (well, chilly) contrast between African-American jazz and Russian classical idioms. Hart’s chill clave drive gives the next track, a low-key, first-gear Mack truck diesel groove. It’s like a portrait of this year’s New York summer: hot days, mercifully cool nights. After all the gravitas, Eckemoff finally achieves the synthesis she’s been shooting for with the title track, a cinematic, crescendoing theme that would have worked for a late-night 70s sitcom (maybe one with a vampire).

Throughout the album, Eckemoff plays with sepulchrally confident chops and an unassailable upper-register glimmer: she’s never met a spiraling icicle phrase she couldn’t nail. For people who like nine-minute songs, and dark music in general, this is one of those rare albums that’s an absolute must-own – and one of the best of 2014. Stream it at Eckemoff’s webpage and decide for yourself.

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