Yelena Eckemoff - Adventures of the Wildflower / 2CD set

2021 CD release. Yelena Eckemoff - piano and composition; Jarmo Saari - guitars, theremin, glass harp; Jukka Perko - saxophones; Panu Savolainen - vibraphone; Antti Lotjonen - double bass; Olavi Louhivuori - drums and percussion.

With her latest conceptual gem, “Adventures of the Wildflower,” Russian-born pianist and composer Yelena Eckemoff reaches her highest pinnacle yet of originality and personal expression. The two-disc set, recorded in Helsinki with a superb Finnish ensemble, tells the heartwarming story of Columbine (named after the flower) from germination through her final time on earth, and includes poems and illustrations by Eckemoff herself that provide personal “accompaniment” to the music.

Pianist-composer Yelena Eckemoff unfurls her most elaborate and ambitious musical work yet with “Adventures of the Wildflower,” which her own L&H Production label will release on March 19, 2021. As its title suggests, the double album is the story of a life, from birth to death (and rebirth), of an anthropomorphic columbine flower. Its story is told through the inspired work of Eckemoff and a Finnish ensemble that includes saxophonist Jukka Perko, multi-instrumentalist Jarmo Saari, vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, bassist Antti Lötjönen, and drummer-percussionist Olavi Louhivuori.

Long a conceptualist, Eckemoff has previously tended to craft albums of thematically linked but discrete pieces. “Adventures of the Wildflower,” however, functions as a single narrative. The flower—aptly named Columbine—undertakes a vivid journey, growing from baby to mature plant as she observes from her garden spot the whirl of nature and of life, plant and animal, around her. She even learns to communicate with her garden mates, a real phenomenon that inspired Eckemoff to create the album when she read about it in a magazine.

“I was intrigued to learn that plants communicate with each other through the air, by releasing odorous chemicals, and through the soil, by secreting soluble chemicals,” she says. “Such communal life sparked my imagination. I started to envision how a single plant would feel being part of such an interconnected community and how it would react to its neighbors who lived next to it. Soon I had a kernel of an idea about a wildflower.”

Eckemoff supplements the original music with an 18-part narrative poem (one part for each composition) that tells Columbine’s story. While nuanced, the narrative is built on an earnest simplicity, like a children’s story. The music, on the other hand, is much more complex. The multiple levels of melody in “Home by the Fence” or “Children Playing with Seed Pods” are sumptuous feasts for both the ear and the intellect, while pieces like “Chickens,” “Butterflies,” and “Another Winter” are filled with experimental, even psychedelic, textures.