Just listened to this on the May playlist - truly one of the best on there!  Such a great use of musical textures and what I think are major 7th and 9ths

Wonderful changes... wistful at the end...absolutely beautiful piece!

Golden Age Of Dereliction

I suppose that it is inevitable for a writeup about a solo piano album to begin with an acknowledgment of the current state of affairs in the present classical music scene (a term I coined to balance out the "modern classical" and "contemporary classical" genres, which also signifies the act of being present during the act of listening). It's inevitable to admit the oversaturation of this style as composers and pianists all rush to jump on the bandwagon of the trend and get a piece of that much-coveted pie from the digital platform streaming revenues, no matter how small it is in the end. But it's also extremely essential to point out that not every solo piano album recorded in the night with close-mic'ed felted hammers gently caressing the strings conveys the emotion of its creator and connects us to his soul. All of the ones I've loved have been covered on here. But it is the playing of Otto A Totland that I cherish the most. From the delicate melodies to his beautiful playing, from the tastefully somber storytelling to the technical attention put in each recording, and finally from the overall delivery to the completely absorbing transfer of his mind to mine, through the keys and the fingers, that is what makes this Norwegian composer stand out among the rest. For this exclusive premiere, I have selected one of my favorite tracks from his upcoming album on Sonic Pieces, which happens to be the same one he played on my very own piano when he has visited London about two years ago (okay, so I'm a little bit biased towards that piece). Nevertheless, I invite you to close your eyes and listen and see if you can uncover that memory that seems to somehow remain forlorn.

Read more on this release here: https://hcdi.gs/Pago

Companion

Pago

TRACK PREMIERE : Otto A Totland - Pago

Jaime Bermúdez Escamilla adopted his pen name from the late poet María del Adarve. A music enthusiast, as well as a composer and sound designer, Jaime was always compelled by what awaits at the intersection where music, words and images meet, and how the audience takes part in that exchange. His work has found its place in film, theater and video games over the past decade. 

He began to develop his passion for music at the age of 12, when he started taking classical piano lessons in his hometown in Andalusia. At age 17 he joined a metal band, which is what you do at that age. A natural-born geek, he then bought his first Pro Tools equipment and began writing and producing fun instrumental pieces that sounded a lot like movie soundtracks. Not long after, he would start collaborating with friends on their projects, writing music for live art performances, short films and small games. 

In 2015, Jaime co-founded his own video game company, an adventure that would give way to his freelance career in the sector. On the side, he’s an interactive music lecturer at the University of Barcelona and he also writes for the classical music magazine Press Music. 

The music in Neu, his upcoming debut EP, was first conceived for the stage. In early 2019, Catalan playwright Bernat Muñoz commissioned Jaime’s music and sound for his soon-to-be premiered stage play. Neu delicately portrays the reunion between Tea, a woman with autism, and her sister Ada, following the death of their mother. Each piece is dedicated to each of the women in the story. The songs that were originally born from this script are now revisited and reshaped as an independent body of work. They were recorded live at Sol de Sants Studios in September 2022. 

Neu releases on the 24th of March, featuring photographs taken by Jaime and graphic design by Celia Bayo.

Purchase

Jaime del Adarve - Tea

Jaime Bermúdez Escamilla adopted his pen name from the late poet María del Adarve. A music enthusiast, as well as a composer and sound designer, Jaime was always compelled by what awaits at the intersection where music, words and images meet, and how the audience takes part in that exchange. His work has found its place in film, theater and video games over the past decade.

He began to develop his passion for music at the age of 12, when he started taking classical piano lessons in his hometown in Andalusia. At age 17 he joined a metal band, which is what you do at that age. A natural-born geek, he then bought his first Pro Tools equipment and began writing and producing fun instrumental pieces that sounded a lot like movie soundtracks. Not long after, he would start collaborating with friends on their projects, writing music for live art performances, short films and small games.

In 2015, Jaime co-founded his own video game company, an adventure that would give way to his freelance career in the sector. On the side, he’s an interactive music lecturer at the University of Barcelona and he also writes for the classical music magazine Press Music.

The music in Neu, his upcoming debut EP, was first conceived for the stage. In early 2019, Catalan playwright Bernat Muñoz commissioned Jaime’s music and sound for his soon-to-be premiered stage play. Neu delicately portrays the reunion between Tea, a woman with autism, and her sister Ada, following the death of their mother. Each piece is dedicated to each of the women in the story. The songs that were originally born from this script are now revisited and reshaped as an independent body of work. They were recorded live at Sol de Sants Studios in September 2022.

Neu releases on the 24th of March, featuring photographs taken by Jaime and graphic design by Celia Bayo.

Jaime del Adarve - Neu

Molecular

Molecular (Piano Day 2023)

Études Op.3 No.34

This is a track i wrote in 1988 (aged 17) and i recorded it in 1995 while i was working as an assistant sound engineer for a CD-recording in a concert hall for a weekend.
At night i took the opportunity to record my own stuff.

Now i uploaded it again - on this throwback thursday today.

1988

Waltz for Shanti

Erased Stills is the debut LP of the Russian composer Igor Dyachenko is an odyssey into the unconscious that lies at the intersection of meditative ambient and industrial IDM.
First thing you notice when you press play is the incredible cinematic landscape of the album and its narrative. Each composition can be read as a chapter of Joyce's “Ulysses”, where moving in space transforms the mental state of the hero evoking wiped memories, random allusions and suppressed associations. In Erased Stills the artist shares his experiences for the last five years, including musical ones.
The album opens with the composition Access Keys. The name refers to the term in psychotherapy, when through barely noticeable gestures, eye movements, posture and breathing, the therapist adjusts to the patient's rhythm trying to find the key to the gate of his unconscious.
In the general storyline, this is a 3am moment. A blank canvas, a stage without artists and scenery, a coordinate system not yet dissected by rays and dots. Soft piano chords, barely touching the listener, are hesitantly making their way through the rustling emptiness.
Tachyons and In Signals are the essence of laboratory experiments with modular synthesizers. It is still predawn twilight, when in silent moon shades you’re trying to guess the shapes and silhouettes carved into the sound.
Unlimited Trance is the most lyrical moment in the album. A touching, youthfully romantic composition with a quivering piano part and convincing strings reveals the spiritual essence of a person.
Mountain Stream continues the ambient line of the record, but melancholy gives way to the joy of awakening. It is as if you see dazzling arrows of the morning rays, beating with cosmic energy and overflowing of diamond light. This is one of the climaxes of the album, when with the awakening suddenly comes the moment of motion: dense, enveloping structures of the bass emerge through the bright cheerful vibrations, a drum machine starts up and from a state of solitary contemplation you seem to be transferred to the center of the earth. Energy, languishing in the unconscious, is converted into kinetic. Transitions from meditative ambient to rhythmic IDM are the common essence of the record.
After taking a short pause in Starfall, the artist leaves the listener again with an epic Space Translation. Bass, smelling like burning rubber, and carefully polished textures are layered on the sequences that are sparkling like a spike of pearl.
You hear even more wildness and gustiness in one of the album’s key tracks - Disintegration: the melodic ambient line dissolves in a saturated groove. The bass goes slowly, like space-time in Interstellar, distorting the rest of the soundscape with its gravity. The drama of the LP is revealed in this tension between hell and paradise: the plots, taken from memory, acquire new sounds and details, turning into an audiopanel and a screenplay.
The final track with atmospheric trance passages and an accelerated straight-line beat is a kind of sublimation of all the experience you lived through this album. Connection to the general flow of energy and dissolution in it.

Buy on 
Bandcamp https://igordyachenko.bandcamp.com/album/erased-stills
Itunes https://itunes.apple.com/ru/album/erased-stills/1449924312?l=en

Streams : 
Apple Music https://itunes.apple.com/ru/album/erased-stills/1449924312   
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/3eJLslyRxPgjoqJB8Lja43?fbclid=IwAR1pj1tgAY9-kOx4z8w5w2Cvcvzx-rRyTW76UBcegcY-gvv5ass-fasTW3E  
Deezer https://www.deezer.com/ru/album/84758022

Erased Stills

Water For Horses

Track taken from the upcoming album 'Unstill' forthcoming on Fluid Audio...

Music: Andy Cartwright
Mastering: Ian Hawgood
Design: Daniel Crossley
Label: Fluid Audio

Unstill

A Diary Of Sorts

Andy Cartwright - A Diary Of Sorts

Recorded for Nils Frahm's Piano Day on 29th March 2021.

"Time Passes Slowly" is the first track of my new album "Still Life", available at Bandcamp.

Bandcamp

Polaroid Notes - Time Passes Slowly - #pianoday2021

"Genre bending!" 10/10 (PrettyInNoise)

"For me, this is one of the best contemplative and reflective piano albums I’ve heard – I love it!" (Pianodao)

„…as if Bill Evans were communing with Arvo Pärt.” (Misfit City)

"It’s very difficult to create an album that stands out amongst all the others, especially an album of solo piano. You certainly have done that. Upon first listen I couldn’t help but smile, I knew I had just stumbled upon something very special." (Todd Armstrong)

"Exceptional, minimal solo piano... A new breeze in the neoclassical genre" (Mellow Structures)

"... plays with all the figures of silence to suspend time and beautify the notes played. One thinks of Joe Hisaishi..." (Flabbergast)


Thank you for listening.
So, stay tuned.
Best
Tom

1988

Tom Blankenberg

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