Kyle Grimm – Forever Eve
Kyle Grimm is the Assistant Professor of Music Composition at The Hartt School, University of Hartford. He has been composing solo works since at least 2010. Have you? His first album, Forever Eve, effortlessly balances the gritty with the beautiful, delivering what composer Roger Zahab aptly calls “feisty Technicolor” music through a stunning synthesis of double bass and electronic processing. The album opens with “Twist and Shout,” I mean ”Twist Then Pull” (composed by Aaron Wyanski), featuring mellow, melodic double bass lines punctuated by slow, distorted electronic hammering and chaotically peppered samples of Max Roach, Jimmy Garrison, and Duke Ellington; as the liner notes reveal, this “fugue of pulses” references the physical acts of tuning and plucking. The tension deepens in Grimm’s own “Serendipitous II,” a mostly sparse exploration of randomness and feedback where the double bass echoes like a gently squeaking door while live electronics granularly record and play back snippets, forcing the performer to improvise alongside a transformed version of his past self. Maria Kaoutzani’s “All About It” shifts the landscape with stronger double bass sawing than the preceding track, navigating seamless transitions from subtle amplification to independent electronic trajectories while evolving into a rich, lyrical, and cinematic landscape that culminates in an improvised ending.
The album’s second half sinks into deep atmosphere and heartfelt reverence. On the title track “Forever Eve,” Grimm pairs spare plucking with real-time reverse delays and shimmering reverbs, creating a subtle, otherworldly drone that delicately balances beauty with the tension of sound caught in a Mobius strip. The album draws to a poignant close with Ken Steen’s “…and in what flows between them.” Starting out life as another sparse mist, the elegy incorporates live loops, Grimm’s pre-recorded passages, and archival recordings from the late Robert Black to craft a profound musical contemplation. Building steadily in volume and emotional density, it brings the album to a resonant finish, concreting Forever Eve as a worthy showcase of electro-acoustic double bass composition.
Label: Neuma Catalog Number: Neuma 257 Format: CD Packaging: Mini-LP tri-fold Tracks: 5 Country: United States Released: 2026 More: Bandcamp, Official
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