Like a 21st century version of ‘Nature Boy’? There’s a subliminal power to ‘Purple Dust,’ the most persuasive of the tracks. But there’s an array of choice and certainly this is an album where there’s way more killer than filler.
Come to the album too for top sonics and clever studio work. Tipped, by means of the very pixel dust that lands on this page that you have scrolled to eccentrically typed at dawn by the much put upon site elf, for the top, Eclipse rewards that hunch. Finally, it’s release day, me, my elf and I got to hear all the tracks and attempt to absorb the ones I don’t know so well from earlier quickly. The title track ‘Eclipse’ does not disappoint. But as noted earlier and certainly not contradicted by the entirety of the conception, things are just sounding better and better all the time.
‘Chasing Down Lessing Street’ shows a bit of range, the bass lines folded in as part of the mix are communicative and the piece shows an aspect of the duo that I hadn’t really found before. Yes, there is a Lessingstraße in Frankfurt where the dynamic duo hail from in the Westend district. It is named after the German Enlightenment writer and philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81) whose Nathan the Wise [Nathan der Weise – natch] was seen according to extensive perusal of Wikipedia as “a fervent plea for religious tolerance”. Lessing is more! As is the track. I wonder why Lessing Street is significant in the duo’s back story. Note to self – sorry but it’s becoming more like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Helen Fielding-esque in these parts ever since that evening being Green down the Emerald – must find out.
The nine-track set follows the duo’s debut EP In a New Order, featured above in an earlier article run on marlbank and continues a partnership that began during the pandemic.
Recorded at Berlin’s Funkhaus Saal 3 additional overdubbing took place at a studio in Offenbach. The album features kaleidoscopic drummer Noah Fürbringer, known for his work with the Moses Yoofee Trio, on the more frantic ravey daveydom tackled on the busy ‘Prism Break.’
‘Interlude’ has an eerie insistence to it that enters a electronica domain at first it seems going to the synths but steps back. And thank goodness for that. The last thing we want now is tired jazztronica.
Instead what sounds like tabla added in by Khadim Seck on ‘Titan’ offers up another vista to an album that has a restless desire to explore new moods and idioms within its basic tonality and the intactness of the duo’s firm identity.
Blair and Huber first met as members of Hessen’s State Youth Orchestra and have played together in other line-ups since 2018.
If you are after groovy riffs you get that too on ‘Gamblin’. Contemplativeness and quiet exploration is the name of the game on the New Year’s day track ’01/01/25′ that pops up at the end. I reckon Eclipse rises to the top of the new Eurojazz list of the year pipping the very different Biréli Lagrène album that’s been there for some time. Read the list in full here.
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