*300 copies limited edition* Well this is a dream, Ukrainian experimental composer Natalia Beylis put together "Love-In-A-Mist, Edible" over the course of three years, recording pianos she would find at other people's houses or on holiday, in Ireland, Amsterdam and Morocco. Ghostly and emotional musical polaroids - it draws immediate parallels with Dominique Lawalrée’s 'First Meeting’ which - you prob know by now - is all the comparison it needs to have our ears fully pricked.
Presented “like holiday snaps… recorded on pianos in various conditions of concord” the suite makes for an ideal introduction to Natalia’s solo practice, offering a dreamlike travelogue of scenes that ooze intimacy and feeling. Fringed with domestic rustles and room noise, they capture Natalia's fleet fingers conjuring ribboning, melodic lines of thought in-the-moment, mostly in succinct time frames, but sometimes taking time to really play out, inhaling the atmosphere thru a fleeting cast of characters.
Natalia’s passion for the instrument would lead her to seek out an auld Joanna wherever she went, literally to the extent that she would book holidays based on whether the accommodation had a piano somewhere. Tuned or otherwise, she makes use of each piano's individual voice and the atmosphere of each location, sometimes with intimately voyeuristic tinkles and overheard conversations, at others sounding like a caffeinated Satie heard from an open window in Morocco.
If you’ve loved music by Lawalrée, or indeed Annie Hogan or Áine O’Dwyer, we wager you’ll find this one a total ‘artmelt.