Dustin O’Halloran – Lumiere

Now that I have found a slight urgency in my blog posting I am going to carry on with another piece of classical magnificence. I have heard snippets of this gents music over the last year, on much better blog sites that this, such as Headphone Commute and Fluid Radio, so it was with great anticipation that I gazed into the looming future release that was Lumiere, by Dustin O’Halloran

Everything that I had heard of Dustin O’Halloran previous to Lumiere, was solo piano business and once again I expected the same, nay I totally looked forward to the same for what I had heard before was so far up my street that it was standing in my kitchen making a cup of tea. Lumiere opens with A Great Divide, which instantly brings some comforting ambient noise, some tinkling and lost in space and time key pressing before deep, rich strings come in to form the pillow of this soft bed of music. So, not a solo piano number then! It took me about 30 seconds to get over this fact and fall face first in love with this record.

The fragile beauty of this album is staggering, if you listen to hard you will break it and it is not listening to it that is key, letting it be absorbed by your brain, letting it in is the order of the day. Again, the cinema of life is much in play here. During the tracks on the album, I have fallen in love, watched a clock whilst smoking cigarettes (in black and white,) watched a car disappear down a rain soaked street knowing I will never see those in it again and held the person I love close while I watch the sun come up. The spectrum of emotion and idea that this album evokes is incredible and saves money on books for commuting, instead letting your imagination create the story.

We Move Lightly is the greatest example of the simplicity that I keep talking about in this genre of music. There are so many people making great music that is ‘simple,’ though not easy, not by a long shot. I have access to a piano at my parents house and I also have the piano skills of a nine year old boy who found Starwars more interesting that music (something which I have lived to regret, due to both harbouring a great desire to play, but also for Bearded Tit ruining my childhood memories with his bastard child prequels) Both I, and my niece, who is supremely gifted, but not trained in any way, figured out the notes for We Move Lightly in a couple of minutes. This should give you the indication that this is not a difficult thing to do, however we knew the notes, but could we get it to sound anything like the recorded version? Not a chance. It took this tinkering to really understand just how much emphasis there is on the actual physical playing of the piano, not just the composition of notes and melody. The gentleness of touch, the use of pedal in a hundred different ways makes this track the incredible, moving piece one of my favourites. Even just by listening you can tell that the music is simple, but that there is subtlety layered upon fragility that makes for music of wonder.

The piano is the star of the album, understandably, but this does not underplay the use of the strings. They are very necessary to the warmth and cadence of the tracks, used sparingly, but very well and there is a certain way of thinking that strings provoke that a piano on its own cannot. They awaken certain parts of the brain that add to the emotional palette of the album. Quintette N. 1 is a brilliant example. Kicking off with lovely warm strings, stripped back to a throaty, rasping solo before they all come back together in one of the most delightful phrases on the album. All this precedes the piano, with its gentle, raindrop patterns before the strings come back to join it, gelling everything together, bringing a somewhat disjointed sounding piece together in back arching grace which gives you an understanding of the whole track. I am going to refrain from further literary bullshit, like musical poetry or whatever, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that this album does it for me on several levels. Even when you are tuning out a little, you are always brought back in by something new and fresh which makes for very happy repeat listening.

Do yourself one and click on the picture above to get a bit of Dustin O’Halloran into your ears.