Thomas Bartlett SHELTER. Modern Recordings/BMG

Pianist/producer THOMAS BARTLETT has announced the release of his debut solo album.

SHELTER is a collection of eight piano nocturnes written as a love letter to his partner, British actress and singer Ella Hunt, as well as to New York City itself, his home for 21 years, Bartlett recorded the album in his home over two days following the beginning of lockdown.

Spanning more than two decades, Thomas Bartlett’s career has seen the musician, composer, and producer performing around the world both as Doveman and alongside The National, David Byrne, Nico Muhly, Anohni, and his own much-acclaimed supergroup, The Gloaming, to name but a few. As a producer, the Vermont-born Bartlett has collaborated with an equally impressive array of diverse but like-minded artists, including St. Vincent, Rhye, Yoko Ono, Mandy Patinkin, and Sufjan Stevens, with whom he earned Academy Award and GRAMMY® Award nominations for ‘Mystery of Love’, featured on the soundtrack to the 2017 film, Call Me By Your Name.

But with his studio empty after lockdown, Bartlett found solace in a musical form dear to him since childhood: the nocturne. Traditionally inspired by the night, the nocturne – especially those by Frédéric Chopin – had proven revelatory to Bartlett as a young musician, though he had long been wary of composing in such an emotional style himself.

Review

Some years ago I received an unsolicited CD album from a pianist based in New York. For me, music has to communicate feelings, emotions, fears, hopes and experiences. To this day I can still feel the anger and frustration in that musician’s life, through his music which moved me beyond words. It’s an all too rare event in today’s mediocre and radio-friendly music market. But rare musical events do still happen - rare doesn’t mean never…Bartlett’s record, borne out of events, personal feelings and thoughts, is one such record.

“In the total strangeness of the moment and the lockdown, I gave myself permission to do a thing that I don’t usually do, in terms of how these pieces to me are kind of shameless in their sentimentality.”

And so Bartlett describes the basis of this record and delivers a gentle, heartfelt and moving personal musical chronicle that travels the road at a thoughtful and peaceful pace throughout, with a few momentary exceptions such as in ‘Arvensis, when musical expression comes to the fore, together with an ambience of hope. Bartlett exhibits throughout a sensivity to the importance of melody to deliver his messages, while each note he plays comes with a special tenderness.

SHELTER is a prime example of how a skilled and sincere musician can envelope and protect himself from the often cruel world outside and in so doing can offer the same calm protection and reflection to his listeners. So this record succeeds in two important fronts: To deliver music of great quality and depth, while through his own emotions offer musical solace to those who listen.

This is a beautiful and moving record for our desperate times.

4/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0PQ9n73Ep4&feature=youtu.be

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