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Tongues / Hope Language

Eric Hofbauer

Label: CNM
Released: 2026
Duration: 92:00:00
Views: 141

Tracks

Tongues (disc 1) 1.1974 Blues (E. Harris) 2. Us (R. Spektor) 3. I Want You (She's So Heavy) (Lennon-McCartney) 4. Sæglópur (Jónsi, Sveinsson, Dýrason, and Holm) 5. Klactoveedsedstene (C. Parker) 6.Up From The Skies (J. Hendrix) 7. How to Disappear Completely (T. Yorke, J. Greenwood) 8. Army of Me (Bjork, G. Massey) Hope Language: (disc 2) 1. Mother Nature's Son (Lennon-McCartney) 2. Here Comes The Flood (P. Gabriel) 3. Ida Lupino (C. Bley) 4. Russians (Sting, S. Prokofiev) 5. Amelia (J. Mitchell) 6. Bachelorette (Bjork, Sjon) 7. Everybody is A Star/ Long as You're Living (S. Stewart, A. Lincoln)

Personnel

Eric Hofbauer

guitar

Temidayo Balogun

saxophone, tenor

Miki Matsuki

drums

Tony Leva

bass

Noah Preminger

saxophone, tenor

Additional Personnel / Information

Ana Ospina - Cello, Hayley Thompson-King - Voice, Kyle Aronson - drums

Album Description

Tongues / Hope Language is a concept double album exploring the sacred power of storytelling — from the direct and literal to the mystical and unspoken. The two discs are two sides of the same question: if Tongues is the act of communication, Hope Language is its content and outcome. Tongues examines how we speak to power, to each other, and to ourselves. Regina Spektor’s “Us” becomes a driving string trio of rhythmic hockets and a flowing lyric that shifts from soaring declaration to sardonic whisper — world-weary wisdom delivered with a wink. Radiohead’s “How to Disappear Completely” blends hints of Argentinian chacarera, polyrhythms and eerie electronics to lean into the lyric’s central idea: memory and nostalgia as coping tools. Hendrix’s “Up from the Skies” is given a poly-tonal harmonic frame, delivered with cool restraint — the calm inside the storm of climate catastrophe. Björk’s “Army of Me” is stripped to percussive, modal jazz that simmers before erupting with distorted force; the text “you’ll face an army of me” never far from the surface.

Hope Language turns inward and outward at once. The album opens with McCartney’s “Mother Nature’s Son” reimagined on tenor banjo — Hofbauer’s recorded debut on the instrument — traveling from blues Americana to the outer edges of post-bop harmony. Peter Gabriel’s “Flood” forms the darker counterpart: pastoral warmth against something menacing, building from whisper to full growl. Sting’s “Russians” becomes a cold war 2.0 revamp — warbly tape-filtered guitar and haunting cello melodies connecting the 1980s to now, the lyric’s plea still piercing. The album closes with Sly Stone’s “Everybody Is a Star” and Abbey Lincoln’s “Long As You’re Living” woven together into a soulful blues elegy — a pure, hard-won hope in humanity to conclude the double album’s arc.

Album uploaded by Scott Menhinick