For those still unaware, “Few contemporary jazz-influenced singers manage to sound so intensely like themselves while drawing on such a variety of genres, languages, and cultural backstories as the Albania-born vocalist Elina Duni,” The Guardian has noted, and Reaching for the Moon once again casts a wide net.

It’s Duni’s third recording with UK guitarist Rob Luft, and where Lost Ships and A Time To Remember featured their co-led quartet, the core duo come to the fore here, in a programme that begins with Irving Berlin’s title song and ends with Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”.

Along the way we hear Duni and Luft originals, traditional music from Kosovo, a lullaby penned by Persian singer Mahsa Vahdat, a ballad from Italian singer-songwriter Pino Daniele, French composer Gabriel Fauré’s art song “Les Berceaux”, themes for film written by Japan’s Shigeru Umebayashi and Poland’s Krzysztof Komeda, and more. “Our duo, our project, is a musical journey,” says Elina. “Different styles and different languages to bridge the gap between people”.

Duni’s resourcefulness as singer is well-matched by Luft’s instrumental skills, the guitarist drifting mellifluously between idioms, gently enveloping melodies, underlining emotional expression in the song texts, and enhancing atmospheres. Reaching for the Moon was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in June 2025.

1. Reaching for the Moon [04:57]
2. Cammina Cammina [05:19]
3. Les Berceaux [02:58]
4. Ani More Nuse [03:14]
5. Foolish Flame [04:02]
6. Leili Lullaby[05:38]
7. Zambaku i Prizrenit[05:08]
8. Yumeji’s Theme / Sleep Safe and Warm [02:54]
9. Magnolia [02:54]
10. Your Arms [04:52]
11. Lonely Woman [04:48]

The album, produced by Manfred Eicher, and is actually released as Elina Duni and Rob Luft embark on a European tour with concerts in Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Albania, opens on the sheer elegance of the truly beautiful title track Reaching for the Moon and then we get the emotively sculpted Cammina Cammina, the stoically resonant Les Berceaux, a veritably transportive Ani More Nuse and then we are gifted the lushly ambient Foolish Flame.

Along next is the ethereally-imbibed Leili Lullaby and the decadently melodic Zambaku i Prizrenit and they are then in turn backed seamlessly by the immaculately evoked Yumeji’s Theme / Sleep Safe and Warm, the soft caress of Magnolia, the set rounding out on the affecting Your Arms, coming to a close on the rhythmically dulcet Lonely Woman.

Official Apple Music Purchase Link

www.elinaduni.com