Amsterdam, Netherlands based Canterbury/R.I.O./Jazz Prog project Zolder Ellipsis published the official music video for the track “Lydian Riff” taken from their new album “Il Libro dei Tropi” out on June 20, 2024 via Lizard Records. Watch the video through the YouTube player below:
On their quixotic second studio effort, Zolder Ellipsis continues to chart an unorthodox course through stylistic borderlands. Showcasing different genres and styles from song to song and within songs, “Il Libro dei Tropi” (Book of Tropes) presents a little compendium of musical devices across the Experimental/Progressive Rock and Jazz spectrum, while incorporating other fringe/popular idioms along the way. Much as medieval composers would use “troping” to insert their own voices into the canonical church music, these pieces are both generic and novel. In the words of the American Heritage Dictionary, troping is “the use of a word or expression as changed from the original signification to another” – which is to say that we’re putting all these stylistic techniques in a new context that gives them a new… essence? Add to that the idea that a trope is essentially symbolic and imaginative (rather than confined by its outward form), and you get the intention: not just genre experiments, but modern mood pieces navigating an imaginal seascape.
This time out, the musical approach is more compositionally focused, with the band maneuvering through complex rhythmic textures and dense instrumental counterpoints. But there is still a healthy dose of the spontaneous band interaction and improvisational mayhem that distinguished the previous album, “Entropy Override.” And in a new direction, “Il Libro dei Tropi” features the group’s first collaborations with the remarkable writer Eunsong Kim, whose lyrics are conveyed here by vocalist/performance artist Esther Mugambi.
Purchase the album on Bandcamp: https://tomaldrich.bandcamp.com/album/il-libro-dei-tropi
Tracklist:
01. Sketch A 06:14
02. Night Crossing 04:55
03. Passed the Storm 03:46
04. Feel Like a Man 03:11
05. BIP 03:07
06. Brunette 07:12
07. Lydian Riff 03:38 video
08. Undertow 05:15
09. The Purge 03:27
10. Grid and Meridian 04:17
11. Sketch C (Quell) 14:29
Lineup:
Sean Moran / Guitars
Tom Aldrich / Keyboards, Piano, Organ
Chad Langford / Bass, Voice (8)
Ivo Bol / Synths and Samplers
Pierre Aeternus / Drums
Esther Mugambi / Vocals (7,9)