For those unaware, the international progressive ensemble Eternal Return is a five-piece combining various duos/trios that have previously recorded and toured together.

Notably, Colin Edwin (Porcupine Tree, NoMan, O.R.k.) on bass with his frequent collaborator, Estonian guitarist Robert Jürjendal (Toyah Wilcox, Fripp’s Crafty Guitar School). At the heart of the band is Dogon, the duo of Miguel Noya, (Venezuelan electronic music pioneer, Phantom Limb Recordings) and Paul Godwin, (California-based composer/singer).

Holding down this aerial act is Miguel Toro, Venezuelan-born, Berlin-based drummer (Royal Dust). It seems like a distant past when five musicians from around the world could meet in a foreign city to record an album in-person, but that’s just what they did.

They came from Venezuela, England, Estonia, California & Spain to meet in Berlin and form this band. The result is something flowing and hypnotic, mysterious yet comforting.

Ergo their debut album Once Only (out now via New Dog Records) was recorded in Berlin in late 2019 by Bob Spencer at The Famous Gold Watch Studio (a former munitions factory and Stasi HQ) and mixed at Pete Townsend’s Grand Cru boat studio in London’s St. Katherine’s Docks by Jonathon Hucks.

The album is concerned with “nomadism” in a time of lockdown inspired by Noya’s status as part of Venezuelan economic and political diaspora (currently living in Europe.)

Musically siting progressive ambient and dream-pop influences such as Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, David Sylvian’s solo work, or the mysterious and finely wrought 4AD project, This Mortal Coil, the album is something fresh, darkly intimate and beguiling.

1. 'Nomad'
2. 'The Void'
3. 'A Medium-Sized Village'
4. 'The Triggering Town'
5. 'The Bottom of the Pond'
6. 'The Sky'

Opening with the grounded storytelling of 'Nomad' and then the ornately earthy and resonant 'The Void,' they back that up with the longest track at over seven minutes, the ethereally rich 'A Medium-Sized Village.'

We then get the gossamery 'The Triggering Town' which is followed by the gentle prog rock of 'The Bottom of the Pond,' with their debut recording coming to a close on the lazy, hazy, gently psych-imbibed 'The Sky.'

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