Szandra Szoke Quintet - Memory Palace (2014/2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

“This album is the result of a lot of inner wars, roaming, and soul-searching. It may even perhaps manifest itself as a journey into my soul. This is highly personal material, hence it’s uneasiness. Each song is a mirror-image, if you take a glance at it, you get to like it, and if you face it for long, it grabs hold of you and won’t let go. At once it’s heart-warming and gloomy. It keeps you company, and echoes in you. But what if I like it this way?” (Szandra Szőke)

“How do you weave so much hope, doubt, struggle, lament, love into song?“ (Szandra Szoke)

"The original songs are filled with striking lyrical imagery and atmospheric music. Three of these originals are especially impressive. "This tune is the sum of what I've become," sings Szoke on "Memory Palace," Cseke's fluid, pretty, piano lines contrasting with the dark-edged and enigmatic lyric. "Wool" takes musical inspiration from folk traditions as well as contemporary jazz: Pustai's percussion is central to the song's somewhat mystical air. Lyrically it resembles the changeling ballads of Scotland, imagination replacing sorcery, as Szoke asks a lover (or a would-be lover, or an ex…) how they think of her—like wood, like smoke, like wool, "like the sky,… galaxies born in my eyes"?

The sultry "In Between The Lines" shifts between its waltz time opening and sections in 7/4 and 4/4, echoing changes in the narrative and in the intensity of Szoke's vocal. It's a superb coming together of music and lyrics, of voice and instrumentalists. Memory Palace ends on another high note. On "Now Sleeps"—lyrics from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's sonnet "Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal"—Szoke's voice is at its purest, accompanied only by Cseke's gentle piano phrases." (AllAboutJazz)

TRACKLIST

1. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Monochrome
2. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Wanderlust
3. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Wool
4. Szandra Szoke Quintet - In Between the Lines
5. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Whitewater
6. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Gyemant
7. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Memory Palace
8. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Zold
9. Szandra Szoke Quintet - Now Sleeps



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