Ethereal Echoes” by Ellie Lilburn — When Silence Becomes Sound

In Ethereal Echoes, pianist and composer Ellie Lilburn offers a luminous collection of seventeen miniature pieces that float somewhere between modern classical and ambient jazz. With titles like L’heure Bleue, Soothing Reflections, or Gravity’s Embrace, the album already promises stillness — but what it delivers is far deeper: a meditation on presence, time, and the subtle poetry of resonance.

The playing is intentionally unadorned. No overstatement, no virtuosic outbursts — just pure, distilled emotion. It recalls the quiet intimacy of Satie, with echoes of ECM’s early catalog. Ellie Lilburn knows how to let silence speak, and how to trust a single note to carry emotional weight.

There is an almost cinematic thread running through the album. Tracks like The Velvet Hour or Town Fables feel like lost themes from a film we wish existed — nostalgic, hushed, slightly surreal. Yet nothing is sentimental. There’s restraint, dignity in her phrasing.

One of the album’s standout moments, Whispers in the Wind, closes the journey with a gentle finality, like the sun setting on a landscape we’ve come to know intimately.

Some may wish for more harmonic exploration or thematic risk — but to ask that of Ethereal Echoes is to miss the point. This isn’t music meant to astonish. It’s music meant to breathe with you.

Whether you're a fan of Nils Frahm, Max Richter, or Bill Evans at his most meditative, Ellie Lilburn’s Ethereal Echoes deserves a place on your nighttime playlist. Or better yet, your morning silence.

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Written by Miles Hargrove

Founder of Jazzrview – Independent Jazz & Classical Critique

📍 New Rochelle, NY