ECM Podcast #66 - Elina Duni & Rob Luft

So near and yet so far.

Last time we spoke, Elena, it was in 2023 for your quartet album, A Time to Remember.

You had spent time in the Sinai Desert.

And you're coming back with a duo album with Rob Luft on the guitar once again.

I was gonna ask how was transitioning from four to two, but we were just saying in our previous conversation, Elena, that your duo was kind of a band within a band.

Mm-hmm.

So maybe transitioning from four to two is not really the question, but would it be more something consider like retour a l'essentiel, return to, to basics?

Yes.

Uh, definitely.

Definitely.

Um, well, the, the duo has always been the core of, of the quartet project, and we've always been touring a lot in duo.

Especially it started during COVID because as Rob says, we were a very cheap band, and also we were ready to go anywhere to do whatever test it takes and anything to play.

So, and we, we, we played in very different and sometimes difficult situations.

So I think this also made the, the music and, and the duo become much stronger.

So it has really evolved, let's say, in the last six years.

For us, it was a kind of the, the right moment now to have something to witness the, the strength of this duo and how much we believe in it.

And that was the right moment to, to make a duo album, and maybe you can say the story of, about Manfred Unterfahrt.