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O’Halloran is here aided by the ACME ensemble of New York, a troupe whose string contributions have lent depth to recent recordings by Grizzly Bear and Owen Pallet. But while there’s more happening in the mix, like the pianist’s solo arrangements, everything feels streamlined – linear, maybe, but only when the end is worth skipping the diversions for. There’s always a destination at the forefront of O’Halloran’s compositions, and the joy comes from the journey itself, rather than the rest-stops or spot-the-whatever motorway games. Sometimes the conclusion is telegraphed at the outset: Opus 43 begins with light touches at the top end of the range, plays it straight through strings that weave like slow-motion display team jets, and rather ends where it began. Elsewhere, A is very different from B, but no less beautiful for a shift in texture – Fragile N. 4 is such a piece, which swells come its downward curve in a manner that mirrors the measured hardening of a lump in a throat.
If O’Halloran’s Piano Solo releases had a flaw, it’s that their hands were shown rather early, and that longevity – when stripped of an accompaniment, be it on a screen or outside a window – was questionable. They were collections of mood pieces, time and place dependent on the individual but certainly unsuited to more regular visits. Here, though, there’s greater warmth, a universally affecting resonance, that should ensure Lumiere is more frequently plucked from stillness on a shelf and allowed to wander its way into the heart. That, ultimately, is where these tracks wind their ways to; and, given the opportunity, it’s there that they will stay.
--Mike Diver
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Customer Reviews
made a gentle and haunting contribution to the listening
world with his new album 'Lumiere'. The music is, indeed,
full of light of many kinds. Whether in the gorgeously
glowing strings and tuned percussion supporting the piano
on opening track 'A Great Divide'; or in stripped-down but
no-less intense keyboard inventions like 'Opus 44', these
pieces gnaw away quietly at our senses until they take up
residence in our spirit (and this truly is spiritual music!)
The American Contemporary Music Ensemble are to be congratulated
as much as the creator of these nine beautiful compositions for their
luminous elaboration and decoration of the core thematic material.
For example, the string playing on 'Quartet N.2', a deeply moving
threnody of quasi-Baroque sensibility, is simply sublime.
Final track 'Snow and Light' has a quiet passion which almost burns!
You will hear fewer things more beautiful than this in one lifetime.
Essential.
OK, 3.5 then.
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