Elysian Fields: ‘Swirling Flame’ Album Launch

“A head-spinning dialogue between half a millennium ago and now, and a sound as foreign as dreaming someone else’s dreams…” – John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald

Led by intrepid viola da gambist Jenny Eriksson, Elysian Fields follows up their much-praised 2020 Scandinavian-inspired jazz-folk-fusion album, FIKA, with a genre-defying musical dialogue between past and contemporary musical realms. Swirling Flame is stimulated by, and draws its title from, the semi-improvisatory art works of leading Australian wood-fired ceramic artist, Barbara Campbell-Allen OAM, one of Eriksson’s closest friends.

Embracing the possibilities inherent in the electric version of her 7-string instrument, Elysian Fields weave sonic magic through a set of originals commissioned for the Swirling Flame project. Each composer, including Eriksson herself, was encouraged to lean into the tensions inherent in electrifying the viola da gamba, an instrument whose lineage in western classical music dates to the 1500s and beyond.

Shifting seamlessly between improvised and notated modalities, centuries of musical memory are embedded in the album’s diverse, yet strangely unified tracks. The textures and harmonies feel simultaneously ancient and modern.

• Susie Bishop, voice/violin

• Loretta Palmiero, saxophones

• Matt McMahon, piano

• Jenny Eriksson, electric viola da gamba

• Jaques Emery, double bass

• Rease Cameron, drums

Supported by Austral Baroque