With his latest solo recording, Bill Laurance, who often experiments with acoustic and electric sounds, is passionate about exploring the full sonic and musical spectrum of an acoustic concert grand piano –  and to inhabit the realm between composition and freedom: “When you play solo, you have a unique opportunity to explore that. Recording in a church was the perfect setting and let me fully surrenders to the music. The superb guitarist Isaiah Sharkey once said to me that it’s the music itself which tells him what to play. That idea really left its mark on me. We are usually trained to control everything, to practice until it’s perfect. But I think I’ve got to a point where I just want to let it flow. Do the opposite, let the music take the lead.”

It would be wrong, however, to infer that Bill Laurance has suddenly thrown away the rulebook completely. Whereas many pieces on ‘Lumen’ have a strong improvisational component, others are composed and have clearly defined structures. The 44-year-old pianist, composer and bandleader is not interested in heading in the direction of resolution and completion, but rather in the power that arises from contrast. He has several projects in which he communicates extensively with musical partners. For example, in the duo with Michael League, in his own trio, with Snarky Puppy, or his orchestral collaborations such as “Bloom” with The Untold Orchestra. These are situations in which one becomes part of a greater entity, and can be carried forwards by the flow, the teamwork. 

Solo piano, on the other hand, works very differently. You see yourself in the mirror, set the rules – but can also break away from them: “I really immersed myself in the moment. For me, it felt like a solo pilgrimage. Something happened, I recorded about three hours of music in total and then had to decide which bits to leave out. At its core, however, it was a spiritual experience for me, a process of arriving, a question of trust. A bit like Indiana Jones in “The Last Crusade” when he takes that jump into the abyss – a leap into the unknown. I couldn’t have exposed more of who I am than I did with this music. I used to be surrounded by a load of synthesizers, drum machines, all kinds of things, even when I was playing solo. But as an artist, I now feel ready to leave all that behind me, the idea here is to be more organic, pure, direct.”

As well as the conventional grand piano, Bill Laurance also used a piano with felt dampers, at the opposite end of the scale from the big resonance of the grand piano. With the felt dampeners, the attack of the piano is reduced allowing for a more inviting and intimate tone. The “felted piano” is tonal, melodic percussion and a contrast with the large, more public space which the church offered. He used it discreetly to give the ten pieces of ‘Lumen’ additional colour, for example as the melodically bold and dramatic intro to ‘Mantra,’ which gradually and almost imperceptibly transitions from a tiny motif into the full opulent sound of the grand piano. The title track, on the other hand, has an impressionistic character and seems like a newly discovered prelude, while ‘Dove’ becomes a version of modern stride piano with lots of cheerful interplay, but also a bluesy nonchalance. 

The album ‘Lumen’ opens doors into a vast world of imagination. It feels like just the captivating beginning, in which the chance to explore and to dig into his heritage and into himself has led Bill Laurance to create music which is grounded in melody, but also lives and breathes the allure of freedom. And it makes you want to accompany Bill Laurance on the next stages of his solo piano journey.