QUINDECENNIAL

When you are dreaming awake while listening to music, it means you are listening to good music.

This album takes us to a wonderful journey where our senses bloom, where we can feel embraced by the delightful notes and unique performances they bring, where we wished we could be there witnessing that live experience. And yeah, part of dreaming awake is to fantasize being in another place, even in another life.

Well, EYOT is a four-piece band coming from Serbia, who I first listened back in 2020 thanks to their '557799' album which game me a very rich and colorful experience. Now in this 2024 they have just released an exquisite album entitled 'Quindecennial', which is a wonderfully curated compilation of live performances the band have offered for the past 15 years, recordings that have taken place in eleven countries around the globe, mostly inside Europe, but also some from Japan and the United States.

The album features 16 songs that make a total time of 114 minutes, meaning you will experience almost two hours of great live performances, a mixture of sounds and musical genres which might be led by jazz, but also offer prog, rock, folk, classical music. The journey can be long, yeah, however it reflects EYOT's productive career so far, because here you will find songs from all their studio albums, so it could also work as an autobiographical live compilation.

Concerts are not necessarily a replica of studio recordings, in fact, I think they must not be at all, because a live experience is surrounded by different elements and contexts, so the musicians have the freedom to change, to improv, to redo the songs and offer a unique performance, a one and only experience which will be witnessed by only a few lucky people. This is what also happens in this album, Ilicic, Vojvodic, Milenovic and Stojiljkovic disconnect themselves from their daily routine and reconnect on stage to create delicious dishes with form of songs which will be delivered to the audience, who work as consumers or eaters.

It is also remarkable their musicianship, it is evident they really know and understand each other, and that the four of them really know how to take the best out of their instruments. Something I love from EYOT is that there are no egocentric entities, the four parts are equally balanced and that's how they built their music, and how their share it. Of course, there are different moments where we can appreciate more that Ilicic's sophisticated piano, or the versatility of Vojvodic's drums, or why not the soft yet deep bass notes from Stojiljkovic, or the heartfelt guitar of Milenovic.

As you can imagine, there are some extended versions here, which is another of the goodness of playing live, songs such as 'Stone Upon Stone Upon Stone, the emotional 'Drifters' or the mighty 'Horizons' have a bit longer and killer versions, and what I also loved about this release is that we can hear the audience cheering the band up at the end of some tracks, so yeah, in the end music and art are about sharing, so EYOT share the music, the audience share their enthusiasm, it's about a fair trade, as well. I also love the distribution of the album in terms of song's length, because it is impressive to see they can hit us with the same depth no matter how long is the song, I mean, we can hear a 9-minute track like 'Drifters' and right away be enjoying the beautiful four-minute 'We'll Get There', or enjoying the delicate six-minute 'Walking on Thin Ice with The Iron Shoes' and then embracing the 11-minute rollercoaster named 'Horizons'. Well, I could be all day writing and talking about this beauty, but I will stop soon because I also want you to listen to this, so maybe you will understand why I started saying this is like dreaming awake, because in each and every track I told to myself "damn, how I wish I was in an EYOT concert". Enjoy it!

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