Dallendyshe
(ECM)
Although singer Elina Duni was only 10 when she left Albania for Switzerland it is her homeland’s music that fuels her mature artistry. Duni’s expatriate status gives her the luxury of distance in the way she approaches the traditional songs, while also imbuing her performances with a compelling sense of yearning or nostalgia.
She continues her collaboration with three Swiss jazz musicians: pianist Colin Vallon, bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Norbert Pfammatter. Liberated from traditional instruments the songs become impressionistic vehicles for these improvising players, and yet the rapport between Duni and the musicians is so strong that there is no hint of idle dilettantism. Rather the material carries an extraordinary intensity underpinning a surface that is often drifting and elegiac, the melodic content carrying echoes of Greek and Turkish idioms. Duni’s voice is mostly sweetly ethereal, although she can also become voluptuously sensual, as on the love song Kur te pashe (When I Saw You), and occasionally more vehement. Fans of this may appreciate Phoenix from Iranian singer Cymin Samawatie and her own European band.