Gia Margaret – Romantic Piano (Vinyl)

At first, Gia Margaret called her new album Romantic Piano to be a bit cheeky. Its spare, gentle piano works share more spirit with Erik Satie, Emahoy Tsegu-Maryam Gubrou and the Marginalia releases of Masakatsu Takagi than they do with, say, a cozy and candlelit date night.

But in that cheekiness lies hidden intention: across the gorgeous set, Romantic Piano is suggested in a more classic sense, what the Germans call waldeinsamkeit. Its compositions conjure the sublime themes of the Romantic poets: solitude in nature; natures ability to heal and to teach; a sense of contented melancholy.

Margarets debut, Theres Always Glimmer, was a lyrical wonder, but when an illness on tour left her unable to sing, she made her ambient album Mia Gargaret (another cheeky title!) which revealed a keen intuition for arrangement and composition not fully shown on Theres Always Glimmers lyrical songs.

Romantic Piano, too, is almost totally without words. Writing instrumental music, in general, is a much more joyful process than I find in lyrical songwriting, she says. The process ultimately effects my songwriting. And while Margaret has more songwriterly material on the way, Romantic Piano solidifies her as a compositional force.

Available on limited seaglass wave translucent coloured vinyl.

Tracklist:
A1. Hinoki Wood
A2. Ways of Seeing
A3. Cicadas
A4. Juno
A5. A Stretch
A6. City Song
B1. Sitting at the Piano
B2. Guitar Piece
B3. La langue de lamiti
B4. 2017
B5. April to April
B6. Cinnamon
B7. A Hidden Track