‘Elephant Love Song’, is Swiss band Luumu’s (Adina Luumu, Simon Iten and Andy Schelker) impressive third album. To be released in 2023, it offers a fine body of songs which lie somewhere between spherical jazz and dark indie folk, underpinned by classically influenced string arrangements and jazzy brass sections. In ‘Elephant Love Song’, three highly accomplished instrumentalists wander stylistically and confidently between the genres, creating a filigree of breathtaking soundscapes.
An atmospheric, dense, and profound album full of intelligent interludes, carried by Adina’s vocals; a virtuoso in her choice of vocal colours ranging from soft whispers to epic laments. Her often comforting warm voice delivers haunting narratives, for ‘Elephant Love Song’ is a narrative, almost cinematic album that takes its listeners on a journey through magical dream worlds and ugly realities.

The thematic spectrum spans from harsh social realities to the poetic imagination. The album contains incendiary songs about the fight against climate change, one's own powerlessness, and the destructive power of human ignorance ("Tell you a Story", "Crossfades" and "The Hope of Fools"), as well as socio-critical contemporary diagnoses in tracks such as "Circle of Existence", which describes the feeling of breathing again after the lockdown-induced standstill in 2020. In between, there are personal biographical songs such as "Castle" and "Persistent", with their touching deep melancholy.

With the opening track "All That's Left", Luumu playfully create a synthesis between the personal, the social, and the primordial by imaginatively linking a lost love, a broken right wrist, and a concert evening with a left-wing politician. Even in poetic songs like "Hazy Wintersun" or "Fragments", there is subtle criticism of our society. Here, too, the narrator sings with a clear and compelling view of the world and its inhabitants.
The creative aspect of ‘Elephant Love Song’ lies in the personal. All of the album's critical observations are infused with a deep sense of loss. In almost every song, there are lines and images dedicated to a good friend of the composer who lost his life in an accident.

From all these powerful, subtle, comforting, vulnerable, angry and warm moments, a compositional and narrative body of work has emerged, in which each song has been given the precise instrumental scoring it deserves, ranging from a minimalist instrumentation of piano, vocals and flute to a full band instrumentation with multiple overdubs. The interwoven harmony vocals on the album are reminiscent of folk and rock bands from the 60s and 70s, and the melancholy string arrangements evoke the yearning of a Nick Drake song. The piano as a constant accompanist is a clue to the bandleader's musical origins and connects the multi-layered songs into a single, musical adventure.

‘Elephant Love Song’ is a compositionally complex yet accessible work of art, which becomes even more colourful every time you listen to it. A journey through times and worlds that, like a comforting daydream, is best enjoyed with eyes closed.