Songs of Earth

Solo piano albums just leave me entranced. They have the ability to sound as expansive as the sea and just as deep, while also revealing an intimate fragility that can be as endearing as the former quality is awe-inspiring.

Culling recordings from solo performances recorded over a three year stretch at Seattle?s Triple Door, pianist Jessica Williams displays those same characteristics in the mesmerizing Songs of Earth.

There is an element of contradictory yet complementary tension, like watching sparklers glisten in the foreground while fireworks explode in the distant night sky. Right hand concentrates on the shiny action, while left hand focuses on sounds that lean to the dramatic side of things? but the music is quick to remind that every note is potentially flammable.

Some tracks, like ?Little Angel,? have a lilting sway, while others like ?Poem? have a confident gait and smoldering passion. Album-opener ?Deayrhu? is reminiscent of Origin Arts label-mate John Moulder?s 2012 live album, which shares the characteristic of unabashed daring of artists pouring themselves into the effort and flirting with moments of pure magic. There?s an honesty to this music viscerally felt. It?s not the kind of element that can be adequately described or measured, which, I suppose, is one of those qualities of art that is both the point of creating it and experiencing it.