Jazz

Norma Winstone/Kit Downes: Outpost of Dreams (ECM 2811)

| Tyran Grillo

Norma Winstone
Kit Downes
Outpost

Norma Winstone voice
Kit Downes piano
Recorded April 2023 at Artesuono Recording Studio, Udine
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Mixed January 2024
by Manfred Eicher and Stefano Amerio
at Bavaria Musikstudios, Munich
Cover photo: Fotini Potamia
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: July 5, 2024

The duo on this recording of vocalist Norma Winstone and pianist Kit Downes came about by chance when Winstone’s go-to accompanist, Nikki Iles, was unable to participate in a London gig, resulting in Downes sitting in as a last-minute replacement. And yet, one would never guess at such a backstory given the openness of heart and communication shared between these two luminaries in their own right. The resulting binary star of their collaboration makes for a tender yet powerful examination of emotional landscapes that feels like it has been around for aeons.

Especially revelatory is hearing Downes’ settings of Winstone’s characteristically astute words. The first of four, “El,” opens the set with the piano’s inner resonance, extended by a faint shimmer from a Hammond B3 organ. The lyrics, written for Downes’ daughter, turn the environment into a reflection of the inner self—and vice versa. Her voice is one of a kind, not only because it belongs to her, body and soul, but also because she gives it so freely to the bodies and souls of her listeners. It exposes its strengths and vulnerabilities in equal measure, knowing that each needs the other in mutual regard. Nowhere is this clearer than in “The Steppe,” where what she calls the “slow drip, drip of a fantasy” becomes the time signature of our existence. Downes expands on this in an instrumental passage, as if the only way out is the path leading back to itself. “Nocturne” peeks beyond the curtain of human folly to the core of truth it so often obscures, while the spoken word of “In Search Of Sleep” touches the darkness with its psychological acuity. Between them is “Black Is the Colour,” one of two traditionals on the album. Winstone digs deep into her vocal register, exploring that ashen beauty she carries inside. Downes makes it all the more poignant with his adventurous harmonizing. The Scandinavian folk tune, “Rowing Home” (in an arrangement by Bob Cornford) becomes a song of desire. Winstone carries its fire into the foreground, casting a shadow over the face of fate.

But just as these feel as fresh as yesterday, the application of her wordcraft turns modern themes into timeless constructions. The music of John Taylor takes center stage in “Fly The Wind,” showing that the late pianist’s spirit is still very much alive in Winstone’s heart. For Carla Bley’s “Jesus Maria,” she replaces the original lyrics with those of her own making, telling of a man whose presence defies the laws of physics by working through the narrowest emotional crevices toward solace from misguided worlds. Winstone’s ability to draw out scenes that feel so inevitable speaks to her connection to melody, not as an aesthetic necessity but as a narrative skeleton to which her words are seamless flesh. In “Beneath An Evening Sky” (Ralph Towner), two lovers find their hearts intertwined no matter the distance between them. Meanwhile, in “Out Of The Dancing Sea” (Aidan O’Rourke), the inner self becomes a map to unfold in the outside world. With that as our guide, the more we travel, the more we begin to know ourselves as we inhabit different places of residence along the way.

Colin Vallon: Samares (ECM 2809)

| Tyran Grillo

Colin Vallon
Samares

Colin Vallon piano
Patrice Moret double bass
Julian Sartorius drums
Recorded June/July 2023 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Cover photo: Woong Chul An
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: November 15, 2024

With Samares, Colin Vallon completes a trilogy that began with 2014’s Le Vent and continued with 2017’s Danse, bringing its themes into the present. The Swiss pianist, reunited once again with bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Julian Sartorius, deepens his telepathic sense of touch across nine original compositions. The album’s title refers to what I grew up calling “helicopter seeds,” which often fall from maple trees in protracted flights. The image is an apt one, as each tune lends itself to plentiful regard as it makes its way toward the ground, so that by the end, we are left with a clearer view of the sky than ever.

“Racine” opens with brushed drums and prepared piano before morphing into piano proper with bowed cymbals and other gilding from Sartorius (who proves himself to be a phenomenal colorist here and in the later track, “Étincelle”). This exploration of morning light allows us to take in the scenery as it emerges, one frame at a time. Next to this awakening, “Mars” introduces the trio’s subtle feel for groove. Blending distance and proximity, the atmosphere is cushioned by the softness of its vision. There is a sense of privacy, of one looking out toward the mountains, of waiting for new constellations to shed the blanket of the horizon and reveal themselves. The underlying pulse is a comforting reminder that we are always moving forward, bound for life itself. Akin to tracks 4 (“Ronce”) and 8 (“Souche”), it emits a subtle yet locked-in pulse that always ensures Vallon has a light, no matter how dark the mood gets.

“Lou” is one of two pieces named for his children (the other being the progressively whimsical and lively “Timo”). It features piano preparations with objects bouncing on the strings as if to convey the trepidations of parenthood. Finally, “Brin” evokes the rustling of leaves, a shifting light, and faces from the past—fading but not forgotten. It is a photograph in a darkroom developing in reverse, leading the eyes (and ears) into shadow.

What has always caught my attention with Vallon’s trio, and with particular maturity this time around, is the ability to disturb the surface tension of its melodic waters without ever breaking it. It cradles the spinning seeds of the title track in their delicate demise, knowing that fresh growth will always find a way to take root.

Giovanni Guidi: A New Day (ECM 2808)

| Tyran Grillo

Giovanni Guidi
A New Day

Giovanni Guidi piano
James Brandon Lewis tenor saxophone
Thomas Morgan double bass
João Lobo drums
Recorded August 2023 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Cover painting: Emmanuel Barcilon
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: July 12, 2024

Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi expands on his trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer João Lobo by welcoming saxophonist James Brandon Lewis (here making his ECM debut). The result is A New Day in more ways than one, each breath a chance at discovery.

This deeply curated session begins with “Cantos Del Ocells,” a traditional Catalan Christmas song rendered with soft-spoken confidence. Lewis speaks only as needed, letting his tenor work its way only through those cracks wide enough to accommodate him. It’s one of two tunes not written by Guidi—the other being a rubato take on the Rogers and Hart standard “My Funny Valentine,” which feels like a well of possibility despite (if not because of) its familiarity. 

With so much space to wander in, the listener is free to explore each new environment as it unlocks itself. Whether your flavor of choice is the arco-inflected bassing of “To A Young Student” or the extended percussion of “Means For A Rescue,” organic elements get revealed by the mesh of every excavation. The group improvisational “Only Sometimes” casts a dim spotlight on Morgan and is remarkable for fitting seamlessly into its surroundings, as if it were an inevitability of the musicians gathered.

The inky call and response between Lewis and Guidi in “Luigi (The Boy Who Lost His Name)” is a highlight for its colorful turns, Lobo providing especially detailed commentary throughout. Between it and the glistening “Wonderland,” there is plenty of dreaminess to unpack in future listenings. Having the surest traction of any tune, Guidi, Morgan, and Lobo interlocking while Lewis carves through ebony and ivory, it is an invitation to run back home and start the journey again with fresh ears.

Those searching for groove in the standard sense will come up short. But if you want something exploratory that expresses itself with open-book honesty, then this one is for you.

John Surman: Words Unspoken (ECM 2789)

| Tyran Grillo

John Surman
Words Unspoken

John Surman soprano and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet
Rob Luft guitar
Rob Waring vibraphone
Thomas Strønen drums
Recorded December 2022 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Martin Abrahamsen
Cover photo: Christian Vogt
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 16, 2024

Words Unspoken documents the unique convocation of saxophonist John Surman (in his 80th year as of this writing) with guitarist Rob Luft, vibraphonist Rob Waring, and drummer Thomas Strønen. The combination, both in terms of the instruments and the spirit of those handling them, evokes some of the groundbreaking collaborations that graced ECM in the 90s, If Mountains Could Sing not least among them. Though I wouldn’t place this in the same category, the session certainly has a charm all its own—one that is unmistakably Surman.

While the bandleader’s fluidity on soprano saxophone is as full-throated as ever, especially in the opening “Pebble Dance,” for which Waring and Luft create a flexible center while Strønen provides the undercurrent for their forward motion, there’s nothing quite like his handling of the lower reeds. The baritone of the title track dances with a characteristically light touch, while Luft’s electric overlay adds cosmic touches expanding on Surman’s experiments with arpeggiators back in the 80s. This, in combination with the vibraphone, adds a requisite touch. The baritone moves more snakily in “Around The Edges,” where romantic and platonic impulses comingle. Sticking with the gravelly end of things, Surman elicits some fantastic palindromes on the bass clarinet, culminating in “Hawksmoor,” which offers the most endearing development of the set, exhaling two parts gold for every inhalation of silver. Along the way, “Graviola” epitomizes the freedom of his playing over Waring’s precise infrastructures. Strønen, too, defers to a liberated touch.

Let us not neglect, though, the soprano’s philosophies, so beautifully expressed in such tracks as “Precipice,” in which it teeters at dizzying heights, and “Flower In Aspic,” where time and space bond over shared interests. The revelrous “Onich Ceilidh” (“ceilidh” referring to a party with dancing and music) encapsulates the joy still left in one of ECM’s most uncompromising yet humble stars, giving Luft carte blanche to reach some of the album’s finest points. And while much of the territory will seem familiar to longtime listeners at its core, to experience it under the navigation of such a fresh band makes it feel presciently true.

Keith Jarrett: New Vienna (ECM 2850)

| Tyran Grillo

Keith Jarret
New Vienna

Keith Jarrett piano
Recorded live July 9, 2016
Goldener Saal, Musikverein, Vienna
Producer: Keith Jarrett
Engineer: Martin Pearson
Mastering: Christoph Stickel
Cover design: Sascha Kleis
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: May 30, 2025

Today marks the 80th birthday of Keith Jarrett, one of the most uncompromising visionaries of modern music. Although he is unlikely to be heard from again in a live setting, we can rejoice that ECM still has recordings in its vault waiting to be released. Among them is New Vienna, the label’s fourth document from the pianist’s final European solo tour (the previous recordings being Munich 2016, Budapest Concert, and Bordeaux Concert). The title of the present disc is a nod to his seminal Vienna Concert, recorded 25 years earlier, almost to the day.

Part I jumps into the bramble of our expectations and slinks through the sticks and foliage with the litheness of a mountain lion. The music evolves in a convoluted dance, moving ever forward to its sudden cessation. In light of such focused energy, it’s only fitting that the shadows of Part II should cast their pall over the scene at hand. Rather than tell a story, each resonant chord lingers long enough for us to come up with our own, so that by the end of this meditative slip, we are closer neither to the destination nor the point of departure. The applause between this and Part III is especially jarring, even as it prepares us for the latter’s spell-breaking properties. Every stomp of its feet is a declaration of the shorter forms that Jarrett came to favor in his latter-day performances. Part IV is an anthem for the soul, drawing a dangling hand through the waters of reflection on its way to the opposite shore. A brief shift into dissonance in the final leg is the only tinge of regret we encounter.

The balladic Part V represents a sea change in the program, channeling feelings so familiar that we must close our eyes to contain them. Every new layer reveals an older memory—this one of a hermetic childhood, that one of an unbridled young adulthood, and yet another of generations interconnected by love—leaving behind a gift unwrappable by time and space. The rise and fall of Jarrett’s left hand mimics the trepidations of an anxious heart that finds truest release at the keyboard alone. The hall recedes, the audience fades, and the lights dim until there is only vibration existing for no other sake than its own.

Part VI is the aftermath of an argument. An unnamed protagonist picks up the physical and immaterial pieces of what has just transpired in the hopes of refashioning them into a semblance of unity. But no matter how much he tries, the cracks are always visible. Part VII evokes the mourning of self that follows, creating hope from scratch before the clouds have a chance to weep. The increasingly dense textures come across as simultaneously desperate and liberated, while Part VIII cleans the proverbial slate with a brief yet cathartic blues. The gospel-infused Part IX is a return to form, giving joy to everything it touches. This glorious turnaround shows us that hope is a many-pronged path. And of all the places it might take us, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” couldn’t be more suitable. Its timelessness is the frame of a building that continues standing even when the mortar crumbles away. And as the winds blow through its open walls, they seem to whisper, “In a life filled with so much wonder, melodies are the only language that matters.”

Fred Hersch: Silent, Listening (ECM 2799)

| Tyran Grillo

Fred Hersch
Silent, Listening

Fred Hersch piano
Recorded May 2023 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Cover: Andreas Kocks
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: April 19, 2024

“I don’t use ideas. Every time I have an idea, it’s too limiting and usually turns out to be a disappointment. But I haven’t run out of curiosity.”
—Robert Rauschenberg

After making his ECM debut with trumpeter Enrico Rava on 2022’s The Song Is You, pianist Fred Hersch releases his first solo album for the label. Pleased with the feel of recording at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI and the piano on which he played that spontaneous session, he felt committed to the idea of returning to the same space and instrument. In the album’s EPK, Hersch speaks of the title as connoting not listening silently but rather a mode of patience from which music grows of its own accord, as is immediately palpable in “Star-Crossed Lovers.” Through the keyhole of this Billy Strayhorn/Duke Ellington classic, we glimpse a realm only articulable in notecraft such as this. Hersch’s sense of touch is profoundly ahead of so many other players, his feeling for melodic form (not just prettiness for the sake of it) giving flesh to every bone.

After such a suspension, the abstractions of “Night Tide Light” set the stage for a swath of freely improvised and original music. They break the spell without ever removing its base components, distilling them into a new tincture for creative souls. Upon drinking it, the mystical aura of “Akrasia” pulls away the proverbial veil to reveal a not-so-proverbial landscape populated by memories knowable only to the listener. As starlight weaves through dampened strings, we are shown new constellations in our image. As the story goes, Hersch brought his sheet music for this original composition, which he realized was on the floor after the recording started, so he just played the beginning and went from there. “Aeon” is one of a few titles taken from the oeuvre of painter Robert Rauschenberg and speaks more to the transcendence at play here. “Volon” is another, working dissonance into a grammar all its own.

The title track is pure transcendence. Improvised without preparation, its feeling is never stable. It wavers between weightless highs and gravid lows—the very qualities of life itself. “Starlight” is perhaps the most descriptive title for the album. It flirts with Debussy’s Clair de Lune before veering off along its own paths, always keeping a toe in the former’s shadow. Distant fires, whispering of a destructive power that looks beautiful from afar, burn quietly. “Little Song,” originally written for the duo project with Rava, receives its premiere here. It’s a tune that bends itself in three dimensions to the listener’s ear, needing nothing but its heartbeat as accompaniment.

“The Wind” (Russ Freeman) is a first take that flows as if it were the tenth. There is something nostalgic about its contours, a certain magic of the past that permeates so many of ECM’s past solo piano gems, including Keith Jarrett’s The Melody At Night, With You and Paul Bley’s Solo in Mondsee. Similarly, this must be heard from beginning to end to be appreciated fully. Hersch lets the sounds go wherever they must, never forcing the keys where they will not bend. It ends with a rustling of leaves, a stirring of the soul, and a baptism of moonlight. The standard “Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise” is a nod to Hersch’s self-professed hero, Sonny Rollins, whereas “Winter Of My Discontent” is an inspiration to itself. Like James Joyce at his most accessible, this is modernism given a fine mesh through which to steep its tea. Thus, the predetermined is not a seed but a base layer for something humane to be built on top. The taller it gets, the more it reacts to the wind, never toppling but gracing the clouds with its teetering metronome.

John Scofield: Uncle John’s Band (ECM 2796/97)

| Tyran Grillo

John Scofield
Uncle John’s Band

John Scofield guitar
Vicente Archer double bass
Bill Stewart drums
Recorded August 2022 at Clubhouse Studio, Rhinebeck, NY
Engineer: Tyler McDiarmid
Cover photo: Fotimi Potamia
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 13, 2023

Since entering the JAPO sublabel on Peter Warren’s out-of-print Solidarity in 1982, guitarist John Scofield skipped between ECM and its sister imprints for decades as a sideman. And while he has only begun headlining sessions for producer Manfred Eicher in the present one, his storied discography on Verve, Blue Note, and elsewhere leaves indelible fingerprints across the fingerboard in this laser-focused studio outing with bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Bill Stewart. Their interactions are as varied as the tunes from Scofield’s pen that activate them, and his chosen points of contact from a wide swath of the American canon only make their energy that much more electric.

Speaking of Scofield’s writing, of which this two-disc album gives us seven substantive examples, we can hardly encounter it without marveling at the vivaciousness he brings to every turn of phrase. Whether in the folkloric delicacy of “Back In Time” or the tongue-in-cheek virtuosity of “The Girlfriend Chord,” he never backs down from the opportunity to tell a meaningful story—nowhere more so than in “Nothing Is Forever,” a tender yet muscular tune dedicated to his son, Evan Scofield, who died in 2013 at the age of 26. Whatever the shade, he lets his expressivity chart its own path.

Toing the line between funk and swing, “Mask” (a reference to the pandemic) welcomes the listener with its headnod-worthy goodness. Masterful playing all around heightens the trio’s cohesion as a unit. “How Deep,” a standard 32-bar jazz, also swings with consummate intuition. Its nostalgic sound finds kindred vibes in “TV Band,” which finds the composer in a guttural mode, with a touch of country twang for good measure. His guitar stays crunchy even in milk, giving us one burst of flavor after another. Finally, “Mo Green” expands his older original, “Green Tea.”

Although Archer and Stewart shine throughout, they are particularly brilliant in their take on Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Anchored by a cycling guitar loop, the album opener takes its time to build, locking step before veering into unexpected directions. Only when the bass solo brings a hush to the scene do we remember that the looping guitar has been going all along. In addition to effortless readings of “Budo” (Miles Davis), “Ray’s Idea” (Raymond Brown), and “Somewhere” (from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story), Scofield shines in his playful rendition of Neil Young’s “Old Man,” a song he now relates to in an experiential way. Even the standard “Stairway To The Stars” seems as though it were written yesterday. In addition to its loveliness, the engineering is superb (Stewart’s brushes sounding especially lucid and present).

All good things come to an end with the title track. This Grateful Dead classic shows the trio in their finest hour. “I love playing this way with Vicente; he knows what to do, as does Bill,” says Scofield in the liner notes. “I feel like we can go anywhere.” And with all the fresh, chameleonic goings on here, it’s hard to disagree.

Elina Duni: A Time To Remember (ECM 2781)

| Tyran Grillo

Elina Duni
A Time To Remember

Elina Duni voice
Rob Luft guitar
Matthieu Michel flugelhorn
Fred Thomas piano, drums
Recorded July 2022 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Engineer: Gérard de Haro
Mastering: Nicolas Baillard
Cover photo: Nicolas Masson
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: June 16, 2023

And I will face the sea
that will bathe the pebbles.
Caresses of water, wind and air.
And light. Immensity.

So begins A Time To Remember, the latest box of newly minted coins to be placed alongside the others that singer Elina Duni has contributed to the ECM treasury. The song, “Évasion” (Escape), with music by Duni and guitarist Rob Luft and lyrics by Belgian-Israeli poet Esther Granek, is a paean to the stripping of hearts and minds down to their barest elements. Admirers of 2020’s Lost Ships will find the band more cohesive than ever, four hedges whose shapes have expanded and intertwined into one larger formation. Multi-instrumentalist Fred Thomas contributes flowing pianism to the set’s opener, while Matthieu Michel adds a voice of his own through the flugelhorn, all of it cradling Duni’s journey from wave to wave, carrying eras of history compressed into every exhalation. On the next shore awaits “Hape Derën” (Open The Door), one of two Albanian traditionals on the program, the other being the enchanting “E Vogël” (Little One), in which Duni and Luft weave through the air as birds in flight. Thomas adds light drums and percussion to this scene of domestic comforts, while Duni’s voice is as delicate as rice paper, softening the glare of remembrance from beyond the pale. “Mora Testinë” (I Grabbed The Water Jar), a folksong from Kosovo, completes the ancestral triangle with whims of flirtation and potential romance, Luft’s guitar sailing crystalline waters, as Duni and Michel move forth in unison of theme and purpose.

Singer and guitarist are the primary creative forces behind the texts and composing, respectively. The title song is one of a quadriptych from their adoring collaboration. Recalling the great folkish ballads of the 1960s and 70s (I sense the fingerprints of Tim Buckley or even Dan Fogelberg), it finds collective purpose in its individualism, where the love one shares with another, soul to soul, stands as the only monument to a world where towers and altars and fallen into dust. Meanwhile, “Whispers Of Water” and  “Sunderland” offer dreamier energies, the latter nestled in more quotidian surroundings:

Cars and spaces
Concrete erases my state of mind
But somehow
The heart is on rewind

This is the core of their navigation, where a split between the flesh and the environments it inhabits functions as its own safety net. Even the wordless “Dawn” transpires as a meditation, the meaning of which is never in doubt.

A curated smattering of touchpoints rounds out the story arc. Charlie Haden’s “First Song” finds the musicians in the most fragile mode, letting the innocence of Abbey Lincoln’s heartfelt lyrics blossom without getting in the way of their fragrance. Even Luft’s fuzzy electric works beneath the voice rather than through it. The Stephen Sondheim classic “Send In The Clowns” stands out as a surreal addition. To hear something so mainstream takes us out of body. Like “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” in the opening of the Disney/Pixar film WALL-E, it’s almost as if the world for which it was created is gone. Instead, it exists on its own terms, haunting outer space with echoes of a planet left to die. “Mallëngjimi” (Nostalgia), with music/lyrics by Rashid Krasniqi, expresses a kindred longing for an Albania that no longer exists. Even the unison of flugelhorn and voice, expanded by pianistic harmonies, can only be a closed circle. The standard “I’ll Be Seeing You” is another step out of time. It’s as if the Great American Songbook were an unfinished sentence on the tip of the cosmic tongue. Accompanied only by acoustic guitar, Duni’s voice recedes, forever unrequited.

Just as light and shadow need each other to survive but never fully comingle, each song on A Time To Remember gives shape to the rest. Their unity is born in contrast, taking shape as one of my top ECM albums of the decade.

Arve Henriksen/Harmen Fraanje: Touch of Time (ECM 2794)

| Tyran Grillo

Arve Henriksen/Harmen Fraanje
Touch of Time

Arve Henriksen trumpet, electronics
Harmen Fraanje piano
Recorded January 2023 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Cover photo: Max Franosch
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: January 26, 2024

Touch of Time marks the debut of a duo project from Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Dutch pianist Harmen Fraanje. Their alchemy of original material, yielding equal parts silver and gold, may just be the finest ECM album of 2024.

A slightly metallic drone runs through the spinal cord of “Melancholia,” where Henriksen’s keening sensibilities and Fraanje’s edgework coalesce into a time-lapse portrait from multiple angles. Through this canvas, we are introduced to a nostalgia that runs deeper than the memories of a single lifetime. Rather, the encounter feels multi-generational and shields its candle against the gusts of history without so much as a flicker of doubt. This truth holds throughout the session, culminating in the searching movements of “Passing On The Past.”

Going one step further into these concentric pieces brings us to “The Beauty Of Sundays,” in which the creative signatures of these two sonic greats are so enmeshed that picking apart where one ends and the other begins grows more difficult as the melodies unfold. Even in “Red And Black,” which is largely pianistic, one feels pieces of each in the other.

All the tunes herein are living photographs. “Redream” is a decidedly familial one that arrives at a gong-like interior. “Winter Haze” suggests an externally manifested yet internally understood landscape, as much rural as it is urban.

Whereas in “The Dark Light,” Henriksen plays chordally through the trumpet with electronic shrouds dissolving to reveal an eddy of piano, the title track unleashes an ocean in which sand castles are dissolved by the tide of mortality. 

“What All This Is” and “Mirror Images” comprise the central dyad. Between the former’s soft textures (a sensitivity that turns stone into feathers) and the latter’s technological swirl, there is so much light that we can only close our eyes against the dawn and be grateful for all that brought us to these moments.

This is music that looks in the mirror until it slips through the glass to take the place of its own reflection.