Partir

"If the future of Duni's quartet is currently uncertain, the many successes of Partir make clear that there are, indeed, many possibilities open to this talented 37 year-old singer, songwriter and instrumentalist. The only thing Partir is missing are the connective texts that Duni uses to bring each song to the next in performance. Still, with a series of tour dates lined up for the summer and fall, audiences across Europe will have the opportunity to experience the spare beauty and haunting melancholy of Partir in a proper concert context. In the meantime, even without those connective texts, ECM label head/producer Manfred Eicher's ever-astute sequencing of Partir lends it its own narrative tissue, making it a complete, self-contained and thoroughly compelling experience for those not fortunate enough to find their way to a live Duni performance".

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"Unlike its predecessors, Partir finds the Albanian-Swiss singer/songwriter going it alone for the first time, apart - perhaps permanently - from her quartet due to the ending of a long-term relationship. In charting a new course, Duni accompanies herself on guitar, piano, and percussion, embracing these 12 songs in nine languages about love, loss, and leaving. It's a departure from the Albanian-only songs that governed her two previous outings and instead reflects the tenor of her solo concerts ... In the music made with her quartet, Duni consistently blurred lines between jazz, folk, poetry, chanson, and other traditions. In performing solo, these already thin lines vanish; they're replaced by the intimate, authoritative weight of her voice writing a mapped, annotated language that juxtaposes tender abundance (the past) with the raw experience of lack (the present). On Partir, Duni enters the realm of the profound: Her voice does not hold within it the grain of separation,butis instead that grain personified".

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"Partir makes a stark departure - solo and self-accompanied, themed on exile and loss - with roots in performances alongside her mother, Bessa Myftiu, reading poems focused on exodus and travail. Duni's recent personal pain and indecision over a band breakup and lost love expands into the international tragedy of migrants' exile and homelessness. As she sings in nine languages, her approach effortlessly embellishes folk themes with subtly improvised touches in minor keys".