Elina Duni (with Rob Luft, Matthieu Michel, Fred Thomas) – A Time To Keep in mind
(ECM Information – ECM2781. Album evaluation by Graham Spry)

It’s all the time a deal with to listen to a brand new album from Swiss-Albanian singer Elina Duni. Duni was born in Tirana, Albania, and has grow to be recognized for her delicate efficiency of conventional Albanian songs. Her earlier albums on ECM Information featured achingly unhappy tunes which will have been of biggest attraction to Europe’s Albanian diaspora. On A Time To Keep in mind – her second album with this quartet that includes long-time musical companion Rob Luft on guitar, Matthieu Michel on flugelhorn and Fred Thomas on piano and drums – the repertoire is far wider, sitting inside a broad jazz vocal custom.

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Duni has grow to be more and more assured as a composer in addition to a performer, notably as one half of a song-writing duo with Luft. They’ve written 5 of the 12 songs on the album collectively, with lyrics in each French and English, together with the title monitor ‘A Time To Keep in mind’. All their songs invoke an atmosphere of nostalgia and instances previous, most clearly within the title monitor but in addition notably on ‘Whispers Of Water’ and ‘Daybreak’. Probably the most excellent of their songs could be the superbly melancholic ‘Sunderland’, the lyrics for which evoke a seaside place some listeners would possibly recognise.

The album additionally contains Albanian and Kosovan repertoire, with items corresponding to ‘Mora Testinë’ showcasing how achieved Duni is as a people singer (whereas Michel’s flugelhorn offers a jaunty chorus to the lyrics of this haunting love music). ‘Mallengjimi’, by Albanian songwriter Rashid Krasniqi, interprets as ‘Nostalgia’, becoming properly with the album’s general themes; the tune’s delicate lyrics could nicely replicate Duni’s private emotions in direction of her house nation. As with these tracks in English and French, Duni’s vocal supply evokes which means such that the listener needn’t perceive the phrases to grasp the music.

‘First Tune’ is written by Charlie Haden and was considered one of his private favourites, however it’s in Abbey Lincoln’s lyrics that Duni invests a wistful ardour echoed by the ascending notes on Luft’s guitar. A stunning inclusion could be Sondheim’s ‘Ship In The Clowns’, a tune whose bittersweet sorrow is all-too-often drowned out by power-ballad preparations, however not right here. The nostalgic theme is maintained within the ultimate music, the Broadway tune ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, which has been lined by everybody from Billie Vacation to Bing Crosby, however whose lyrics are given recent poignancy on this stripped-down model of simply vocals and guitar.

A musically profitable album just isn’t just one the place the musicians carry out nicely and the songs are well-chosen, however the place there’s a constant general really feel with out being one-dimensional. It isn’t stunning to be taught that the idea for ‘A Time To Keep in mind’ got here from a go to that Duni and Luft made to the Sinai Desert whose stark vacancy impressed nostalgic introspection. The album was recorded at La Buissonne Studios in Southern France to which a lot of its stunning sound and mixing will be credited.

The quartet are largely touring the album by means of Switzerland this autumn, however there shall be a chance to catch them performing on the Stapleford Granary Arts Centre in Cambridge in December.

LINK: A Time to Keep in mind on ECM Information