Scenes From The Dark Ages (L & H Productions, 2025) is an evolutionary pinnacle in Yelena Eckemoff’s 22-album discography. Never content with remaining in a single stylistic place long, Eckemoff moves into new sonic areas with Rosendals Garden. Over the next few months, the composer will release singles from the recording, beginning with the title composition.
The trio performance features pianist/ keyboardist Eckemoff with bassist Svante Henryson and drummer Morgan Ågren. The inspiration for the piece is Rosendals Garden, which is on Djurgården, an island in Stockholm belonging to the Swedish royal family. It is a sprawling park with trails for horseback riding and paths for walking. It also hosts a vast selection of trees native to Sweden, vegetable and herbal gardens, and an enormous fruit orchard. What enamored Eckemoff was the impressive flower garden showing off its beauty at the end of August.
The vision gave way to a nine-minute suite featuring a variety of mood vistas and enchantments. Like the gardens, the composition is overwhelming with colors, textures, and assorted tonal devices intended to capture the disparate, yet related, parts of the garden. The piece begins with an airy trilogy that dissolves into a rhythmically complex section that features Henryson sparring with the composer while Ågren keeps things polite. If “Rosendals Garden” is any sign, the rest of the recording will be exceptional.