Elsa Nilsson: Atlas Of Sound - Quila Quina

Imagine someone coming up to you selflessly offering the gift of time—time to step away from the struggle; to hold a baby high—and that someone is flautist/composer Elsa Nilssonand she is playing her most translucent aria, "The Wind From The North Comes From The West"

Some human endeavors are simply more beautiful than others.

Nilsson, an active member of the downtown creatives and recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant stands alongside the equally eco-minded pianist and fellow Brooklyn-ite Santiago Leibson to create eight mindful settings. Mixing all the natural elements Quila Quina -40°17'38.21"N, -71°45'68.48" exists at a delicate point in our collective well-being when the species needs to think long and hard about how to co-exist in and on a world getting smaller and harder.

But that is what being a young musician living in these conniption times is all about: Say what you have to today because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Not with disinformation, nukes, superstorms, and assault rifles on everyone's menu. So jazz or not, chamber or not, Quila Quina -40°17'38.21"N, -71°45'68.48" captures the ear and makes visions in the head. Pretty visions. Lasting visions.

Second in her Atlas of Sound series—multi-disciplined captures of places inspired by our connection to the planet and how we nourish or deplete that bond—is a telling work of great detail from which Nilsson never flinches. Neither Leibson, whose instinct for the purely majestic cadence makes "Neneo, Charcao, Chacay" so vast and grand a sky over which Nilsson soars to classical heights.

For a special place—Quila Quina sits on the southern shore of Lago Lacár, in the Patagonian region of Argentina—special music is needed. Nilsson, who has proven her knack for special music (Pulses and Time Zones (ears&eyes Records, 2023)) sings for us all. "Ciprés, Roble Pellín, Ñire," the childlike fragility of "Radal," the contemplative "Waters Cold and Deep," the jangling closer "Chin Chin/Puelche," harbor all our voices in testament to the world we must persevere to preserve yet appear destined to lose.