Scene from Hellek

Album review

Pianist Rami Khalife is the son of master oud player Marcel Khalife, but plays nothing like his father. Far removed from world, Arabic or Middle Eastern musics, the acoustic keyboardist is more akin to modern spontaneous pianists like Cecil Taylor, Misha Mengelberg, Fred VanHove, Charlemagne Palestine, or Denman Maroney. While not quite the hyper-pianist that they are, his brilliance is clearly evident, using a technique that in many instances is restrained. Known in concert for his exhaustingly long instrumental improvised dialogues and diatribes, here Khalife is often thoughtful and reverent, though far from delicate and genteel. These 12 acoustic solo piano originals run thematically as a whole quite well, and as such deserve an attentive sitting from the astute listener. His most spatial and reasoned playing is heard during "Liva," he is very introspective and sonorous on "Ya Hadya Al Eiss," and waxes mysterious as a Lebanese night sky on the two-note theme "Five Minutes in Beirut." On these, Khalife is fond of going inside the piano strings, strumming arpeggios as accents. He uses a playful, then serious stalking theme for "Pts. 1 & 2" of the "Trilogie: Novahut"; he assimilates a dramatic percussive tympani during its third part, "Reinhard in Paris," and is a jumping bean on the 88's, in no-time for "Danse Soufi," and in kinetic hyper-piano mode on "Dimensions." This wide range of styles, emotions, and dynamics is best heard on the title track finale, which starts brooding, morphs stoic, and is eventually victorious and triumphant. A recording of great depth and vision, not to mention difficult to specifically pigeonhole, Khalife is holding a fresh, new, modern, somewhat post-minimalist approach close to the vest. Likely he will bust out with a follow-up blockbuster of a project in the not too distant future.
© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo