All Of Us: Vinyl LP

Eight years on from the release of his compelling debut album Sun, Cloud, Luke Howard has now established himself as one of the most important and exciting musicians in contemporary classical music. The composer has been at the forefront of opening up piano music to a new generation, while challenging the notion of what can be achieved in the form. New album All Of Us is not only an exquisite portrait of isolation, loss, resistance and reconciliation in both stark and rich shades of piano, orchestra and electronics, but the theme of quarantine provides a framework for the record. Throughout the album, Howard shifts between subtle permutations of shifting sound, etched with his trademark intimacy and restraint, and applied with a palate both minimalist and expansive; to his own piano, celeste and synthesiser, the Budapest Art Orchestra (conducted by Peter Pejtsik) plays strings, guests added flugelhorn, viola, contrabass and modular synth whilst fellow post-classicist Ben Lukas Boysen provides additional programming, production and mixing on Critical Spirit and The Opening Of The Gates.

SIDE A
1 Critical Spirit
2 A Different Idea of Love
3 A World of Abstractions
4 An Hour Off For Friendship
5 The Compass of a Telegraph
6 The Closing of the Gates

SIDE B
1 The Opening of the Gates
2 The Moment Only
3 The Vast Indifference of the Sky
4 I Was Very Fond of You, But Now Im So Tired
5 A Language Forgotten
6 A Faint Qualm for the Future