REVIEW: Love Notes in E – A Gentle Dedication to Her Piano
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY NTHATILE MAVUSO ☆
SHRINE WAS THE FIRST SONG OF ELIANA GLASS’ THAT I WAS IMMEDIATELY DRAWN TO. The heaviness and melancholy contained in her voice and the exquisite instrumental filled me with a familiar sadness and longing. It was the texture of her voice that invoked not a particular memory or the image of love lost, but the pure emotion. Is that not what music was made for? Feeling. E, in its haunting, hovering, and languishing form, feels timeless.
This is effortless for an artist of Glass’ stature and background. The Australian-born and Brooklyn-based musician first learned to play piano by ear and later spent years learning musical compositions typically performed and recorded by jazz musicians. Glass then studied jazz voice at the New York private research university, The New School, where she began singing in various musical quartets around New York City. Towards the end of her studies, she composed songs inspired by forward-thinking artists like Ornette Coleman, Asha Puthli, and Jeanne Lee. An admirable trait Glass possesses in addition to her constant pursuit of education and knowledge in jazz, is her passion for collaboration.
E was produced and recorded over four years with Public Records co-founder and producer Francis Harris, alongside engineer Bill Skibbe. The album weaves together a network of voices and creative inputs that contribute to its overall depth and cohesion. In addition to the sonic landscape, Glass worked with Jules Muir on the four music videos accompanying this album, giving the world this album has created a visual interpretation. A standout lyric, “Sorrow wears and uses us,” draws from James Baldwin’s 1984 letter to his former teacher Orilla Winfield, where he reworks a Henry James passage, an intertextual detail that adds emotional and intellectual depth to a brilliantly textured record. Glass’ work here is clearly inspired.
A truly stunning debut, this album is characterised by blurred emotions and elusive storytelling, elevated by Glass’ distinctive low, breathy vocals and lyrics that feel disembodied yet confrontational. The imagery described is often stark and brutal, yet never gluttonous; there is a search for meaning and true yearning rather than indulging in pain. “Human Dust,” set to text by artist Agnes Denes, and “Song for Emahoy,” a personal tribute to Emahoy Tsegué Maryam Guèbrou, emphasizes the album’s poetic and spiritual resonance. This is music that feels both intimate and expansive, grounded in lived emotion yet always reaching toward something unattainable.
