In 2019, Fabian Dudek released “Creating Meaning”, the debut album of the quartet he had formed the year before. The follow-up Isolated “Flowers” was released in February 2022 and underpinned Dudek's reputation as a "high-flyer of contemporary jazz" (FAZ). Both productions and the band's concerts received an enthusiastic response, and the second work was nominated for the German Record Critics' Award. On the way to unlimited jazz" was the title of Concerto magazine's review of “Isolated Flowers”. Last year, Dudek released the multi-layered album “Protecting A Picture That's Fading” with the sextet La Campagne, and now he presents new works by his quartet on “Distant Skies, We Dream”.

The already remarkably high standard is raised even further. Firstly through, Dudek's sophisticated compositions, whose rhythmic sophistication and sharpness of detail make a striking mark on the contemporary jazz landscape. The nuanced to powerful, always extremely attentive interplay of the working band, which has noticeably grown together and has been able to increase its dynamics between quiet and passionately escalating passages, between contrasts and intensifications, is also impressive. For all its emotional power, the band is more pointed than ever, consistently implementing small-scale structures and letting its expressiveness flare up in a targeted manner. Further facets of this impressive development are the expansion of the sound palette, above all by David Helm's electric bass, but also by the synthesizer, Dudek's occasionally bright flute and his extremely variable expression on the Saxophone.