Alexis Taylor

Piano

Image of Alexis Taylor - Piano

About this item

Hot Chip front man Alexis Taylor pares everything back to just piano and voice for an intimate record of new songs, reinterpretations of his own writing, and a selection of favourites both well-known and unheard before by other artists. Recorded at Hackney Road Studios by Shuta Shinoda, Piano invites the listener to be privy to a very private recital, with Alexis’ vocal and piano captured live and up-close, preserving each beautiful moment.

“The idea with this record was to choose songs of my own and others' that were personal to me and to document live performances which were intimate and unadorned. I wanted to reduce everything to the barest elements, record a great piano well and do as little as possible to the recordings eq or effects-wise. The mood created on the record is pretty different from that on other records I have been involved with. It feels like a special place to be able to go to."

“After it was completed 'Piano' struck me as a sort of gospel record in places - albeit an atheist's gospel album, if that's possible. 'In The Light of the Room', Elvis's 'Crying In The Chapel', the hymnal 'I Never Lock That Door', and the miracle-referencing 'So Much Further To Go' - they have that feel to them for me lyrically and musically. But the Miracles in 'So Much Further' are Smokey's as much as anything Biblical, and the reference to both silence and music filling the air reflects the album’s observations about absence, loss, repair and surrender to love and sound. The song is one I was really happy with when I first wrote it partly because it offered some mystery to me - I didn't fully understand it. After a close friend and collaborator passed away during the making of this record - actually someone who I had asked to contribute small string parts to it - I felt I understood it all too well:

'Life a miracle - a miracle that's hard to bear'”

TRACK LISTING

01. I’m Ready
02. So Much Further To Go
03. Crying In The Chapel
04. Without Your Name
05. In The Light Of The Room
06. Lonely Vagabond
07. Repair Man
08. Don’t Make My Brown Eyes Blue
09. I Never Lock That Door
10. Just For A Little While
11. Don’t Worry

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