Eidolon Album Review

A web of entrancing strings will ensnare you in the latest album by Nervous Doll Dancing, the solo project cast by enchantress Francesca Mountfort. The cellist is spellbinding in her third album Eidolon. The instrumental work is beautifully mastered and composed, resulting in an expressive and dramatic work. Mountfort is not just a musician and composer, but a narrator, a compere guiding you on this exotic expedition. 

Eidolon opens with ‘Sneaky’ a song with offbeat bass strings superimposed with an affecting melody. Mountfort is effortless in the emotion she can convey in her instrumentation. ‘You are my Eidolon’ is hauntingly sumptuous in its layering of sound elements.

Her music permeates beyond the aural- it truly pervades into your consciousness. You can not only hear, but feel every pull on those cello strings. It slowly awakens all of your senses, to the point where you are transported to some other world. An enigmatic location you want to discover the mysteries of. ‘Ederlezi’ is the emotionally-charged, thematic tune of the album. This song is laced with an extrinsic zest. Mountfort also keeps it quite classical in this album in tracks like ‘Prelude no.1 in G Lydian.’

The yearning of ‘Meditation for Coco’ and ‘Aerial Grace’ is heart-wrenchingly exquisite in its melancholy. Eidolon is more than an album. Rather, it’s a soundtrack. It invokes a visual fantasy, as well as musical experience. Mountfort is cleverly lyrical in every note, in every delicious chapter of sound. ‘Solo’ showcases her mastery of the cello. She is a dichotomy of delicate and empowering. Eidolin is feminine and graceful yet commanding in its allure. Mountfort has truly outdone her already high calibre of work in her third album. By keeping the work unadorned she lets her weapon of choice, that vivid cello, spin this web of lust that will bind you to Nervous Doll Dancing.

-Janise