Francesco Tristano - Piano Circle Songs (2017)

Francesco Tristano returns to his first passion with a selection of beautiful, newly composed works for solo piano. ‘Piano Circle Songs’ features award-winning Canadian pianist and songwriter Chilly Gonzales on four of the tracks, of which Gonzales composed “Tryst” himself for the album.

It was important for FT to capture the intimacy of the music in both the recording and the post- production phases. By purposefully placing mics close to the instrument, he wants the listener to experience the sensation of having “their ear inside the piano”.

“I love the beats, I love the constant impulse. The music on ‘Piano Circle Songs’ is the opposite. It’s very intimate, a melodic way of composing that has been largely inspired by the fact I had children. They made me explore a gentler phase of what I could do at the piano, in terms of writing”, Francesco explains.

The album theme of “circle” reflects the cyclical nature of the pieces themselves; many of the works follow ABA form or extended variations of this. FT also drew inspiration from a chance conversation with Chilly Gonzales and reflections on the behaviour of his children.

"I had already written a couple of 'circle songs' and in my first meeting with Chilly Gonzales, we were incidentally talking about circles. That most perfect and yet simple geometric form. For me it's a perfect shape because you get 360 degrees without even taking a right or a left turn. It encapsulates the idea of a cycle, like the seasons, so whatever state you're in you'll return to it. And it also reminds me of the behavior of children because children are I think the greatest representatives of human kind. And their behavior is very much in a circular pattern. They might change personality 18 times a day, but by the time it's bedtime, they are back at the original starting point of the circle." (Francesco Tristano)

“His latest project lands in an innocuous middle zone, with stripped-back piano-writing borrowing the loops and layers of deep house and the spacious textures and wan harmonies of ambient tracks.” (The Guardian)