Yelena Eckemoff: Desert

After two expansive collections that gathered large ensembles and formidable names, Yelena Eckemoff chooses subtraction. Desert arrives as a deliberate narrowing of the horizon, a journey defined not by accumulation but by exposure. Joined by Paul McCandless on an assortment of reeds and winds, Arild Andersen on bass, and Peter Erskine on drums and percussion, Eckemoff steps into a terrain where every gesture is magnified by space. What emerges is music that feels windswept and arid, an austere and sharply rendered lithograph whose beauty lies in restraint.

The desert has always been a place of paradox. It appears empty, yet nothing is incidental. Every footprint matters. Every sound carries. From its opening moments, Desert understands this truth. "Bedouins" does not announce itself loudly. It enters the way a caravan appears on the horizon, rhythm first, then shape, then intention. Erskine's percussion moves with quiet authority, detailed but uninsistent, grounding the music without tethering it. Eckemoff's piano offers soft harmonic shelter, while McCandless's soprano lines trace a path that feels guided by memory rather than destination. This is not exoticism. It is presence.

"Mirages" extends this sense of uncertain orientation. The piece drifts between solidity and blur, asking the listener to accept instability as a form of knowledge. The English horn glides across its surface with a calm that borders on indifference, as if aware that longing itself reshapes perception. What seems graspable dissolves. What vanishes leaves a residue. Eckemoff resists drama here, favoring a quiet tension that feels truer to the phenomenon at hand.

With "Desert's Cry," the album reaches an inward stillness. The sound opens wide, letting air circulate between notes. Piano figures suggest shifting ground, subtle and unsteady, while Andersen's bass sings with a human warmth that feels all the more striking against the sparse backdrop. Eckemoff's melodic instincts remain direct, almost plainspoken, yet they bloom without excess. This is music that trusts endurance over flourish, growth over spectacle.

"Colors of Nothingness" deepens the album's nocturnal sensibility. Chromatic piano lines and minute changes in texture evoke a landscape transformed by darkness, where heat recedes and clarity sharpens. The desert's cold asserts itself, revealing another kind of intensity. Even in the more kinetic passages of "Dance," and later in the promise held by "Oasis," motion circles a core of profound stillness. Awe, not excitement, becomes the dominant energy.

The album's second half moves into more unsettled terrain. "Condor" occupies a space where balance is deliberately withheld. Forms resist resolution. Identities feel provisional. The music acknowledges that dislocation is not an aberration but a condition of living. Eckemoff's piano takes on a more overtly compositional role here, shaping atmosphere while remaining responsive and porous. The tension between structure and spontaneity feels essential rather than theoretical.

That sense of purpose carries through "Dust Storm," in which turbulence never obscures direction, and "Desert Remained," a slow-burning meditation whose cool patience recalls a lineage of spacious modern jazz without ever leaning on nostalgia. There is confidence in how this group moves together, a shared understanding that allows risk without anxiety. In "Garden of Eden," that trust becomes audible joy. The piece paints intimate scenes with generosity, each voice given room to speak without competition.

By the time the album reaches "Sands," the journey feels complete. What remains is acceptance. The bass clarinet brings an earthy gravity as the music loosens its grip, lifting gently as the light fades. Nothing is resolved, yet nothing feels unfinished.

Desert stands as one of Eckemoff's most demanding recordings, and also one of her most fully realized. It reflects an artist increasingly attuned to her own instincts, willing to risk silence, ambiguity, and vulnerability. In embracing its titular landscape, Eckemoff does not seek to conquer it or romanticize it. She listens. And in doing so, she leaves us with a work that lingers long after the final grain of sound has settled back into the earth.

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