Nikol Bóková - Elements (2023)

Pianist and composer Nikol Bóková keeps her pace: one published album a year. After the albums Inner Place (2019), Unravel (2020), and Prometheus (2021) comes the fourth album Elements, which Nikol composed for the newly formed group Nikol Bóková Quartet. The line-up consists of guitarist David Dorůžka, double bass player Martin Kocián and drummer Michał Wierzgoń, the last two being both permanent members of the Nikol Bóková Trio.

The Elements was recorded at the studio Sono Records in March 2022. Bóková says she had prepared material for the album with great precision and clear musical ideas, the main inspiration coming from classical elements such as earth, water, fire, aether, and cosmos. In composing the material she has taken into account the artistic abilities of specific artists for whom she creates her music.

“If I were to try some genre specifications, I would say that compared to my previous albums, Elements are here and there more classic, in some places, there is more jazz, elsewhere more pop and at times definitely more rock,” she says, adding that, as in previous albums, her compositional style was again based on searching and discovering within her own expanding musical world.

This is ethereal, mostly slow tempo, kind of dreaming music, in which piano (C.BECHSTEIN model D-282) rules, and when not, participates in a dialogue with the solo guitar, the bass and percussions making the whole sound jazzy. Characteristic to Bóková’s sound is quite an extensive use of the pedals (or some other method to the same effect) in order to change the sound in various ways. Despite certain uniformity in style, the compositions manage to be inspiring and relaxing at the same time.