Eleonore Oppenheim, Home

Contrabassist Eleonore Oppenheim steps nimbly into the spotlight on this, her first solo album. Home (Innova 929) showcases Eleonore's wide-ranging virtuosity and imaginative mastery of extended and standard techniques with a series of five commissioned works that cover a gamut of influences that new music now feels quite comfortable within, be it glitched, pulsed, abstracted or minimal.

Various transformations of electro-acoustics are the formative bedrock upon which Ms. Oppenheim unveils a rather startling arrays of bass technical-artistic possibilities. Composers Angelica Negron, Florent Ghys, Wil Smith, Jenny Olivia Johnson and Lorna Dune give Eleonore a very wide swath of possible musical universes and contrabass challenges, which she takes on with a consistently performatory zeal and extraordinary command of the resources at hand.

Anyone who loves the rich timbral and sound-color gamut of contemporary bass excellence will be much taken with this music and Ms. Oppenheim's artistry, I do believe. It is music that meets you half-way but then gives you very evocative listening fare to send you to various new worlds.

Excellent!