Tom Arthurs trumpet Antonis Anissegos piano, prepared piano Stamatis Pasopoulos bayan Dine Doneff double bass, guitar, percussion, vocals Recorded live at Stadtkirche, Rudolstadt July 6, 2014 Editing: Tome Rapovina Mastering: Kostas Kontos Cover/Design: Fotini Potamia Produced by Dine Doneff

Doudoule begins as a quiet act of assembly, four distinct presences finding one another in real time. Dine Doneff’s bass sets the initial pulse, opening space rather than filling it. Tom Arthurs’ trumpet waits, listening before speaking, attentive to what is already forming around him. Antonis Anissegos approaches from another angle, his piano ready to shift the ground beneath with a single chord or sudden flight. Stamatis Pasopoulos completes the circle with the bayan, an instrument that breathes history and air into the room. Together, they sound less like a band stepping onstage than a conversation already underway, one the listener joins midway, aware that something patient, communal, and deeply human is about to unfold.

“Faces” opens the path. The bass speaks first, soft yet resolute, shaping a malleable mood. It carries light and shade together, suggesting that resolution and doubt are not opposites but companions. Piano chords appear as careful steps across uncertain terrain, each one placed with trust. When the trumpet finally enters, it does so without force, a gradual illumination rather than a flare. The bayan stirs, completing a scene that feels rural and inward, as if fields and sky were meeting inside the music. Nothing fully resolves. The clouds linger at the edges, a reminder of unfinished thoughts and unarticulated concerns. Anissegos’s piano moves between closeness and distance, shifting the listener’s vantage point again and again, teaching us how easily perspective can change without warning.

“Meglen” follows with a different posture. The bass intro here is more angular, almost architectural, yet it breathes freely, allowing swing to bend its lines. From this foundation, a broad and generous theme blooms. The quartet sounds fully assembled now. The trumpet rises with clarity and calm assurance, drawing the listener into a melodic current that feels warming and protective. There is a sense of shelter in this piece, of sound offered as refuge during a cold season. The group’s union becomes palpable, each instrument reinforcing the others without obscuring their character.

The title track moves the goal post once more. It opens playfully, the bass again leading, but this time with a more elastic, inviting tone. Rhythm loosens its grip, allowing the bayan and piano to dance into view. The music becomes communal and animated, buoyed by chant-like vocalizations. There is joy here, but it is grounded rather than ecstatic. Arthurs takes flight above the rhythm, yet never loses contact with what lies below. His trumpet feels like a collective voice lifted skyward. Form and feeling intertwine so closely that they become indistinguishable.

With “Rite of Passage,” the album turns inward. Bass and bayan blend into a more somber hue, their lines tinged with reflection and quiet gravity. A dialogue emerges between bass and trumpet, intimate and exposed, as if the music were speaking directly to its own origins. This exchange reaches toward something essential in Doneff’s musical ethos, a belief in honesty over ornament, in vulnerability as strength. The piece then transforms, slipping into a dreamlike terrain shaped by prepared piano and percussive textures. The familiar dissolves, and what remains is a sense of standing between what has been known and what has yet to take shape.

Last is “Prolet,” where the surreal elements continue to expand before slowly converging. Themes gather as if guided by an unseen gravity, aligning themselves into a closing statement that feels earned rather than imposed. Doneff’s guitar and subtle percussion trace fleeting highlights through the texture, like sunlight catching on distant landscapes glimpsed in sleep. These sounds do not point backward so much as outward, toward places imagined and possibilities still forming.

In its final moments, Doudoule resists the temptation to summarize itself. Instead, it opens a quiet question: How does a shared journey reshape those who walk it together? The music suggests that meaning is found in the very act of listening, in remaining attentive to change and to one another. As the last tones fade, what lingers is awareness, a sense that the path continues beyond the performance, carried forward in memory and in the next act of collective creation.