Yelena Eckemoff belongs to no scene: if anything, she’s her own scene. The impression has crystallized over the many years I’ve absorbed her music and monitored its development. Eschewing live performance, the acclaimed pianist allocates her time and energy to conceiving album projects, writing music, creating paintings to partner with it, and inviting performers of high calibre to become a temporary family unit and give voice to her compositions. The latest from this inexhaustible creator—her twenty-third release since 2010—is the double-CD set Rosendals Garden, which is not only dramatically different from last year’s Scenes from the Dark Ages but the ones preceding it too.

Befitting an artist born in Moscow and a United States resident since her late twenties, Eckemoff views the world with an eager and embracing eye, her artistic vision invigorated by exploring new places and meeting new people. A glance at the eleven titles on Rosendals Garden shows the focus this time to be Sweden, with the country’s natural beauty and history granting Eckemoff all the inspiration needed. Recorded over two late August days in 2024 at Stockholm’s RMV Studio, the album finds the pianist coupling with two terrific collaborators, drummer-percussionist Morgan Ågren and bassist-cellist Svante Henryson. Only three musicians participate, but with the leader augmenting piano with keyboards and Henryson playing double and electric basses the music’s rich in timbre (apparently he plays bass on eleven tracks and cello on nine). The verdant splendour of the Swedish countryside is intimated in the extra colours the three add throughout to the piano trio core.

Issuing albums on her own L & H Production label, Eckemoff exercises complete control over their presentation, and Rosendals Garden is one of her most attractive to date. Graced by a lovely cover painting (a video of its time-lapse creation is available online), the fold-out case and booklet contain numerous other renderings as well as picturesque photos and texts that blend personal reminiscences with commentaries. As they make clear, the pieces emerged out of memorable visits to the country and have compelling stories to tell.

Considering that RMV Studio was founded by ABBA’s Benny Anderson as his home recording facility, it’s apt that the album opens not with the title track but instead “ABBA Museum.” After synths and percussion flesh out the intro, the trio serves up a breezy shuffle with Henryson delivering the album’s first solo and Eckemoff responding to his bluesy extemporizations before adding her own. Like most of the other pieces (only one’s under seven minutes), “ABBA Museum” is a widescreen odyssey that liberally stretches out, for nine minutes in this case.

She wrote “Rosendals Garden” after viewing the resplendent rows of flowers at Djurgården, located on one of Stockholm’s islands, and the music’s introspective intro suggests she was enraptured by the experience. Energy kicks in at the two-minute mark, however, and the performance takes on palpable urgency, the rapidity of its pace perhaps reflecting the excitement Eckemoff felt in the presence of such beauty. As Henryson sparred with the leader on the opening track, he does the same here too, though this time it’s electric bass and piano engaging in muscular to-and-fro. Even at this early stage in the presentation, it’s clear the pianist’s own affinity for invention and sonic colour is equaled by Ågren and Henryson. They’re anything but too-polite players too, as shown by the fervour with which they execute the material.

“Gamla Stan” captures the impressions Eckemoff formed during her stay in Stockholm’s Old City, the change from countryside to city suggested by her choosing to play electric piano before shifting to acoustic. Reflecting the range encompassed by the project, “Öresund Bridge” (which connects Denmark and Sweden) presents some heady mix of gothic church music and jazz fusion in its searing weather storm of cello, organ, drums, piano, and electric bass. With respect to Henryson’s impact, consider the wailing cello solo he contributes to “Country Orchard Café” (replete with whale-like vocal effects) when he’s not also working electric bass into the arrangement. Hear also how effectively his unison playing on cello and bass voices the theme during the peaceful reverie “Sunrise in Rimbo.”

A popular open-air museum that recreates Swedish settings from times past, “Skansen Park” finds the trio at its most playful and exuberant, Eckemoff translating the delight of her excursion into song. The military pattern with which Ågren introduces “Ruins of Älvsborg” evokes a time centuries ago when the former military stronghold was operating—now it’s a site where an old castle is visibly sinking into the ground. Built in the mid-sixteenth century to be the residence of the royal court, “Gripsholm Castle” is today a public museum featuring rooms that preserve the look of that earlier era. Similar to the opening track, this closing one transports us to another place and time using glistening synth textures, Henryson’s cello flourishes, and Ågren’s cymbal textures.

There are constants from one Eckemoff album to another, her sensibility as a composer and her style as a pianist among them. No minimalist she, the pianist consistently embroiders each performance, never overwhelming the music with her presence yet generous in the contrapuntal layers she adds to it. Weaving her patterns into the music’s intricate design, a typical Eckemoff track is always a sonically stimulating treat for the ears, and the eleven on this latest set are prime illustrations.