3.5

Release data:

Goldmund – The Malady of Elegance
CD/LP, Type Recordings, 2008

For as long as I review electronic and strongly related music, I always have had a fascination for intimate soundscape worlds that breath a soft mourning, sadening and melancholic emotion. While searching the internet for something in this genre, I ran into the Goldmund’s release “The Malady of Elegance”, composed on piano by Boston-based composer Keith Kenniff (who also seems to release under the Helios-moniker).

Not only does the music have a strong cinematic impact, its simple ambient-poems come up close and personal, displaying lots of sensitivities while roaming gently in pastoral and reflective worlds of sound.

Here, the listener enters a quiet and meditative environment that feels heart-warming as the 15 delicate tone-poems slowly unfold after each other in a sense of bliss. The intimacy inside and found in between the notes is so near one can almost touch it, and further words to express this are simply insufficient.

The smooth piano pieces with subtle electronics that make up “The Malady of Elegance” create a lovely, lonely sphere-painting that shines gently due the overall muted sound.
If you like Harold Budd or the works of Erik Satie, this fine album will be right up your alley.

Website: www.myspace.com/goldmundmusic