Scott Reich: Interbeing: Elements of Connection
Heart Dance Records

Denise Young: Winds of Change
Higher Level Media

These recent releases from Southern Californian Denise Young and San Diego resident Scott Reich differ in fundamental ways, yet both have the capacity to lift the spirits. On her fourth studio album, Winds of Change, Young builds expansive soundscapes around an acoustic piano foundation. It's not uncommon for strings, woodwinds, and classical guitars to accompany the keyboard in her settings, which incorporate a diverse blend of Irish, Celtic, and Spanish flavours into their New Age-classical design. Many of the pieces on this forty-three-minute set are enhanced by the contributions of guests, and that her music generally soothes is in keeping with her professional background as a music therapist in Los Angeles.

At the start, “Under the Olive Tree” formally impresses with elegant classical writing but is as powerful on emotional grounds; the combination of piano, classical guitar, and cello produces a sound so beautiful it's almost overwhelming. Those aforementioned Irish and Celtic influences surface conspicuously in the title track and add considerably to the melancholy ache that's so fundamental to Young's writing. A subtly Celtic hint also emerges during “Blue Violet” in the lovely violin solo that appears alongside her piano, and the interactions between violin, cello, and piano make “Dannsa” as transporting.

In being titled “Teardrop Symphony,” one naturally anticipates a lengthy orchestral work of melancholic disposition; the setting does, in fact, turn out to be a sombre symphony but, at four minutes, one in miniature. Of those who appear alongside Young, violinist Charlie Bisharat and cellist Cremaine Booker deserve mention for how much their playing elevates the pieces on which they appear. Not every track features others: the plaintive, aptly titled “Reflections” features the pianist alone. There's nary a misstep on Winds of Change, but the inclusion of wordless vocalizing on “Moonlit Heart” might count as one. There's nothing objectionable about Baraka May's singing, and admittedly voice does add an extra texture to the album; it's simply that the music's already so emotionally expressive the inclusion feels unnecessary.

Reich likens his music to “a windblown seed, carried aloft on the air currents, its mission to find a home.” That desire to connect is central to his latest, digital-only release Interbeing, rooted as it is in Thich Nhat Hanh's belief that awareness of the interconnectedness of all things promotes empathy, understanding, and peace. Each of the twelve one-word track titles references a quality that fosters that connection, with openness, self-awareness, appreciation, and generosity general points of emphasis. Reich brings a remarkably well-developed skill-set to the endeavour. After an early interest in drums led to music studies at Berklee, Amherst College, and the University of Michigan, he ended up in New York in the finance industry before a life-changing move to Kona, Hawaii saw him creatively reinvigorated by his love of nature and discovery of Kabbalah, the result collections such as Interbeing and 2019's superb Instar.

Reich's extensive background in electronic production methods and his knowledge of multiple ‘World Music' styles serve him well on the new release. Based on listening alone, it's impossible to determine whether the material was produced using a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments or whether Reich's convincing simulation of ‘real' instruments was effected wholly electronically. Boundaries between countries, cultures, and genres (New Age, classical, ambient, et. al) also fluidly collapse in these productions when the elements blend so naturally.

At album's start, “Delight” merges East and West in backing a sarangi-styled lead with luscious synthetic washes, willowy flutes, and Indian percussion. Tablas and chimes provide a lulling base for the vocal-like expressions of the string instrument, the production the first of many exercises in spiritual replenishment; “Mudita” later revisits the sarangi-related design of “Delight” though this time buoyed by a neo-funk groove and muted trumpet playing. Synth washes and acoustic piano act as connecting threads throughout, with Reich individuating the pieces by using different instruments as lead voices. Whereas it's sarangi in “Delight,” it's bass clarinet, flute, and steel guitar in “Tranquility,”“Oneness,” and “Sweetness,” respectively.

Reich excels at whatever stylistic zone he operates within, but the contemplative ambient soundscape “Karuna” and Metheney-esque ballad “Kindness” suggests that those areas suit him particularly well. The word tranquility is used as a track title, but in truth its spirit permeates the recording as a whole when a sense of peaceful resolution is felt throughout its sixty-four minutes. However idealistic it might sound, one imagines the planet would be a more evolved place were Interbeing a daily part of its peoples' lives.

July 2020