This NYC-based composer has long been a bit of a curious enigma to me, as he seems to travel primarily in experimental music circles, yet seems unwaveringly devoted to making very traditional and melodic classical music. In a quietly subversive way, however, composing simple, elegantly lovely piano pieces in 2019 is a radical act in its own right. That is where Waller (mostly) arrives on Moments, his third album and most minimal, distilled statement to date. That approach suits him well, though I am not necessarily sure he needed go more minimal than he did with 2017’s excellent cello/piano album Trajectories (released on Sean McCann’s always interesting Recital Program imprint). To some degree, Moments feels less like complete statement than its predecessor, resembling instead a kind of expertly curated mixtape of different piano composers unified by a knack for lyrical melodies and a sort of warm, wistful Romanticism. Some are among the most beautiful pieces that Waller has composed to date though, which makes Moments akin to a strong (if improbable) "singles album" of sorts. At times, it also feels like the beginnings of a major creative leap forward.
We made it to 700 episodes. While it's not a special episode per se—commemorating this milestone—you can pretty much assume that every episode is special. This one features Mark Spybey & Graham Lewis, Brian Gibson, Sote, Scanner and Neil Leonard, Susumu Yokota, Eleven Pond, Frédéric D. Oberland / Grégory Dargent / Tony Elieh / Wassim Halal, Yellow Swans, Dental waste in Saigon photo by Krisztian. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images! |