Following Waxx Up (2017), a wonderfully groovy album featuring Yaël Naïm, Hugh Coltman, Charles X, Mathieu Boogaerts, Ibrahim Maalouf and Michelle Willis, Eric Legnini has left vocals to one side to concentrate on the guitar. With the aptly-named Six Strings Under, the Belgian pianist celebrates the six-string in all its forms; be it jazz, gypsy, rock or afrobeat, all genres which have accompanied him throughout his life. Returning to acoustics this time around, he has surrounded himself with his friend and double bass player Thomas Bramerie and two high profile guitarists: Hugo Lippi and Rocky Gresset. As always with Legnini, there’s nothing monolithic about this album and we slalom between the 30s (Stomping at the Savoy), Fela-style afrobeat (Boda Boda), rock à la Radiohead (Daydreamin) or Jobim-esque bossa-nova (La Mangueira). He even revisits Bowie’s hit Space Oddity in a splendid stripped-down cover. “That was the challenge: I wanted a slow and pared-back version. But I also wanted to stick as closely as possible to the melody and its original performance”. The piano-bass-guitar format allows Eric Legnini to work with space like never before (he comments that “the interplay is very different because usually it's often the drums that take over in a band”) and also to further expand his musical colour palette. © Max Dembo/Qobuz