Yelena Eckemoff: Rosendals Garden

Rosendals Garden is yet another chapter in Yelena Eckemoff's ongoing historical narrative devoted to people and places both real and imagined. Recorded in 2024 at RMV Studio, Stockholm, Sweden, by engineer Linn Final, with mixing and mastering by Stefano Amerio, the audio is as colorful and detailed as the musicianship and the packaging.

Remarkably, there has never been a sense of hurry in the playing of keyboardist Eckemoff and her two bandmates. During the luxuriously slow build-up of "ABBA Museum," for instance, there is every indication all three musicians trust their instincts, individually and collectively. The shared intuition is even more apparent on the title song: the structure of the composition is mirrored in the arrangement and further reflected in the performance.

Processing such filigree, it is hard to believe this near ninety-minute collection was recorded in just two days. Of course, there is no doubt that pre-production and rehearsals took place prior to entering the studio to record this all-original material. Nevertheless, there is a definite sense of ease radiating from each piece because each compositional outline allows for spontaneity. Eckemoff knows how to write for multi-instrumentalist Svante Henryson and drummer/percussionist Morgan Ågren.

Inside the fourteen-page booklet of text and imagery, photos of the trio at work in the studio—alongside posed and impromptu images of the Swedish locale on which the songs are based—lend even further insight into the flexible three-way bond (fittingly) apparent in "Country Orchard Cafe." 

Handling cello, double bass and electric bass, it is no surprise Henryson is so prominent over the course of these eleven tracks. His relative preeminence, in fact, rivals the bandleader's. But that is ultimately an indication of the latter's generosity of spirit as well as a hint at how subliminal is the presence of the former's partner in the rhythm section: keeper of the beat(s) Agren is more felt than heard during, for instance, "Sunrise in Rimbo."

In line with previous releases such as Scenes From The Dark Ages (L & H Production, 2025),  Yelena Eckemoff not only produced the music of Rosedals Garden, after composing all the material and playing in the designated trio, she also provided the cover art in the form of original paintings (some of which even appear under the clear plastic trays inside of the double-fold sleeve) and supplied extensive liner notes. 

Thus, like its predecessors, Lonely Man and His Fish (L&H Production, 2023 ) and Adventures of the Wildflower (L&H Production, 2021), this two-CD set is the definition of the concept of 'the complete package.' Such is the accuracy of that phrase too, that it might well pertain to this multi-talent Russian artist, at least as much and perhaps more than the assignation 'renaissance woman."