Dallendyshe (ECM) Although singer Elina Duni was only 10 when she left Albania for Switzerland it is her homeland’s music that fuels her mature artistry. Duni’s expatriate status gives her the luxury of distance in the way she approaches the traditional songs, while also imbuing her performances with a compelling…
Category: Album Reviews – Archive
Dawn (Cuneiform) A certain virtuoso local drummer, now deceased, used to think British jazz was a joke. I doubt he had heard much. The US Cuneiform label continues its inestimable retrospective on British jazz’s golden era, stretching roughly from 1965 until 1980, and this new instalment of recordings from the…
The Half-Finished Heaven (ECM) I have always loved music that ensnares the listener in a spell. These days, alas, the prevailing aesthetic, almost regardless of idiom, is to pummel audiences into submission. I have not heard Sinikka Langeland live, but her albums present sounds finely engraved upon the surrounding silence;…