MELODIYA
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley October 3, 2024
Artist – Hans Christian. Thomas Barquee
Distributor: Bandcamp
Released: August 2024
Running Time: 51mins 17secs
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All embracing the first song on the recent release from Han Christian, Melodiya, is absolute perfection in enchantment. Soft, delicate and dreamy The Gift is tranquility in song.
Thomas Barquee, pianist and producer of many beautiful chant/devotional albums joins Hans Christian on five of the beautiful songs that make up this new album, a work that commenced some eight years ago, after Barquee showed Christian two piano sketches he had ‘laying about’.
Various tracks recorded over the years were revisited and he realised the music had an ability to resonate deeply several years on from the original compositions. Completed in early 2024, Melodiya has come together as a mixture of elements, ranging from neo-classical pop to sweeping, cinematic elegance.
At just over eight minutes long the richly layered The Promise is a song in which to immerse your soul, allowing the gentle music to soothe and relax. This is the one song that stands out in a collection of amazing songs.
Opalescence is Christian with on his beloved ‘cello, adding some serious additions which shift what commences as a classical melody placing it firmly in the neo-classical pop genre. Gentle in parts, catchy and up tempo in others, the song has a lovely percussive bass which anchors it in the here and now!
Barquee carries the melody of That One Thing while Christian adds the various instruments to create a somewhat intriguing pot pourri of influences, generating visions of wide open spaces wafting into intimate chamber music which floats across the ether and is reminiscent of the gentle music of David Darling.
An Echo’s Soul is spacy, airy, transient and otherworldly, making the perfect song to complete a voyage of gentle perfection to a place and time that is magical, mysterious, deeply personal and immensely enjoyable.
MELODIYA is now submitted to the GRAMMYS® for consideration as “Best Album in the New Age/Ambient/Chant” category.