All Of Us

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2022-04-29

Label: Mercury KX

Eight years on from the release of his compelling debut album “Sun, Cloud,” Luke Howard has now established himself as one of the most important and exciting musicians in contemporary classical music. The composer has been at the forefront of opening up piano music to a new generation, while challenging the notion of what can be achieved in the form.

“All of Us” is not only an exquisite portrait of isolation, loss, resistance, and reconciliation in both stark and rich shades of piano, orchestra, and electronics, but the theme of quarantine provides a framework for the record. Throughout the album, Howard shifts between subtle permutations of shifting sound, etched with his trademark intimacy and restraint, and applied with a palate both minimalist and expansive, to his own piano, celeste, and synthesizer, the Budapest Art Orchestra (conducted by Peter Pejtsik) plays strings. Guests added flugelhorn, viola, contrabass, and modular synth while fellow post-classicist Ben Lukas Boysen provides additional programming, production, and mixing on “Critical Spirit” and “The Opening of the Gates.”