Gorgeous, lilting Palm Wine classics from the venerable Sierra Leonean.
‘All is Sound could not be a more apt title for this,’ says Mississippi. ‘Through saxophone, cello, piano, and flutes The Cosmic Tones Research Trio created a truly beautiful record. All is Sound breaks new ground. At its heart, it’s healing/meditation music, but the Gospel and Blues roots are in there too…as well as hints of forward-looking Spiritual jazz.
‘Delicate, profound melodies create peaceful, immersive soundscapes, which the group develops through their combined background in acoustic ecology, sound meditation, mindfulness, and active community involvement.
‘Following the steps of musicians such as Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, and Pharoah Sanders, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio delivers music that is both restorative and sonically rich—each tone falling into a perfect place, as if by magic.
‘As sincere a record as you could ever hope for. Music is indeed the healing force of the universe.’
Roiling, cascading, highly charged, deeply emotional piano improvisations by this Dutch-born, Columbia-trained chemist, who was an early follower of Gurdjieff.
Nyland released sixteen transcendent albums — nowadays pretty much vanished — of spiritual pianism on his own Gage Hill Press, starting in the mid-sixties. Each LP came with stunning woodcut artwork by Nyland’s wife, Ilonka Karasz (who also designed covers for the New Yorker); and highly refined black-and-white photography.
Piano Studies 337 is a particularly tempestuous performance that Nyland himself recommended to Ansel Adams as a good entry-point to his music.