Shyfrin Alliance - Upside Down Blues (2024) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. The Cage
02. Unconditional
03. I See Your Eyes
04. Upside Down Blues
05. Conversation with Love
06. Shakespeare Blues
07. G-d's Number Blues
08. Bridges of Paris
09. To Your Soul
10. Lockdown
11. Cheval Blanc Blues
12. Whiskey Blues

Introducing the award-winning scientist and businessman Eduard Shyfrin with his life-afrming debut album Upside Down Blues - a modern bluesrock classic.

A personal crisis can be a curse or a blessing, either plummeting the victim into despair or forcing them into making change for the good. After years as a successful businessman, mathematician and physicist, Eduard Shyfrin had a crisis that prompted a life-changing revelation. A whole new way of thinking was born as the award-winning scientist embarked on a steadfast pursuit of meanings and purpose, research and writing bestselling books – all of which has culminated now in his debut album, Shyfrin Alliance.

In this album of intoxicating rock, blues and romantic balladry, written entirely by Eduard himself, you won’t find songs devoid of meaning. These 12 tracks brim with the messages of unconditional love and antiwar – themes which resonate on a timeless level but no more so than today.

I try not to write meaningless lyrics without a message - I’m not interested in that,” Eduard says with a dismissive flick of the hand. “For me the message - the lyric - is very important.

When it came to the vocals, he had tried to find a singer who could convey the emotions and messages of his songs, but failed. “There are a lot of people with a very good voice, but it is most important to produce an emotion that touches people’s hearts, not the ears. If you manage to touch the heart – the soul – that’s success. My lyrics and my music came from my soul, from my life experience.”

He sought the advice of the manager of his music project, the Cannes-based jazz singer Lizzy Parks, who suggested that he apply his own distinctive bass baritone to his songs. Eduard followed her advice, and started practising. After some training, he can sing notes which usually only operatic basses can reach. Of the record’s 12 tracks – recorded at Paris studios Barillet, Ferber and Grand Armee – he sings nine.

One song in particular harks back to his early exposure to jazz: the gorgeous piano and saxophone-drenched sultry number ‘Cheval Blanc Blues’. And there is balladry in ‘I See Your Eyes’, ‘Unconditional’, ‘To Your Soul’ and ‘Conversation with Love’. The cabaret jazz-infused latter – intended as a Frank Sinatra-style ballad, and featuring the honeyed vocals of Lizzy Parks – is about someone who has not felt love for a long time and is grappling with whether or not to trust it. “It’s about the nature of love,” explains its writer. “Love can kill, and love can heal, love can be from hell or from paradise.”

‘Unconditional’ was inspired by the love of his grandmothers, with whom he grew up in the small apartment. It was the fastest song Eduard ever wrote. He had decided to take some lessons in public speaking to ease the tenseness he could feel when lecturing on Kabbalah and science, and in one exercise was asked to imagine the place where he was born.

“Then my soul went to the apartment where I grew up, 60-something years ago. I had a fantastic feeling of warmth and happiness. It was a happy place where I was loved unconditionally.” He came back home from the session and wrote the music and lyrics in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, ‘To Your Soul’ encapsulates the inevitable obstacles to romantic love, and the innate drive to reach it.

That the songs span such broad genres is down to Eduard’s life-long thirst for music, but also his scientific mind. After all, he says, Pythagoras discovered that music was intrinsically linked to mathematics, and could be used to manipulate and create moods. “So I realised that any kind of music is for a purpose. There is music for dancing. If you’re at a disco, you want to hear popular songs. If you want to meditate you might want nice jazz…”

The goal was simply to write good music – and nothing predictable. For this mathematician is all too aware of the science of writing a song and the obvious chord combinations. And everything, he says, must be bigger than the sum of its parts, in line with the scientific concept of holism. “The composition is an indivisible whole between music, lyrics and vocals. If you’ve managed to strike bingo and great holism, then it will strike people,” he says.

Basile LeRoux, guitar
Dominique Bertram, bass
Jean-Baptiste Cortot, drums
Frederic Gaillardet, keyboards
Yannick Soccal, saxophone
Lizzy Parks, vocals

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