Hania Rani - Ghosts

Catching the light is the photographer’s art. Hania Rani’s art too.

From the beginning ("Oltre Terra"), one can guess an orchestra is tuning up before a concerto promised to be sumptuous. Then, Polite Polish, she’s careful to greet us: "Hello hello hello hello"... Doesn’t it ring a bell? Nirvana, isn’t? Nothing to do with it, yet, since the whirling back sound would rather conjure "On the Run" in The Dark Side of the Moon!

Those who already know this virtuoso pianist won’t be surprised by this album, which doesn’t differ much from her previous works. Except our "Agnes Obel 2.0" pushes the boundaries back: trippier, more electro, more sung, more soul-jazz (hi Norah Jones), more experimental, more varied and more homogeneous (yes, both) and more synth (hi Jean-Michel Jarre).

Is it so amazing to find Patrick Watson, the Flying Canadian ("Dancing with Ghosts")? Not really, as these two seem to be united in suspension, far above the pack, with a treatment of vocals which owes much to Thom Yorke.

Post-classical, the young woman from Gdansk, who studied at Chopin University of Music, plays her speciality: a fast and repetitive staccato on the keys, from which she gives free reins to variations and improvisations, in the vein of another Polish pianist she pays tribute to ("Komeda").

Whereas "Utrata" represents the conclusion of the concerto, and "Nostalgia" its instrumental appendix, "The Boat" could be its preamble, the music on hold while the audience enters the room and sits down.

Pianist since she was 6, she’s grown considerably, her fame too, and now the planet is the playground where she gives her concerts surrounded by 3 or 4 keyboards.
In her repeated rare lyrics (half of the pieces), in a soft and abstract way, this admirer of Giacometti broaches aging and the "Thin Line" between life and death. This line where the light passes. Like a musical photograph.