leila bordreuil

1. For Tamio
2. Past Continuous

First pinging our radar with her ‘Headflush’ album for Catch Wave back in 2019, Leila Bordreuil has a tactile, extreme approach to the cello, one that focuses on its visceral aspects in a way that mimics the most spirited, fraught and melancholy human emotions. Despite the complex nature of her playing, you can trace Bordreuil's lineage back to Arthur Russell’s defining ‘World Of Echo’ in methodology and spirit - Leila plays with no processing or effect pedals, everything stems from the player, her instrument, and their surroundings.

‘Not An Elegy’ is a grippingly stark work that owes as much to the city’s history of jazz as it does to experimental classical forms. It's an uneasy but deeply life-affirming trip through the dense fog of memory and modern anxiety, coaxed by a player whose hands shape, and whose feelings ooze through the recordings in a way that’s impossible not to be affected by in the deepest sense. It’s a remarkable document of a time, and an artist, right on the cusp.