At first, Gia Margaret called her 2023 album 'Romantic Piano' to be a bit cheeky. Its spare, gentle piano works share more spirit with Erik Satie, Emahoy Tsegué - Maryam Guébrou and the 'Marginalia' releases of Masakatsu Takagi than they do with, say, a cozy and candlelit date night. But in that cheekiness lies hidden intention: across the gorgeous set, 'Romantic' is suggested in a more classic sense, what the Germans call waldeinsamkeit. Its compositions conjure the sublime themes of the Romantic poets: solitude in nature; nature's ability to heal and to teach; a sense of contented melancholy. 'I wanted to make music that was useful', says Margaret, vastly understating the power of the record. 'Romantic Piano' is curious, calming, patient and incredibly moving - but it doesn't overstay its welcome for more than a second. Margaret's debut, 'There's Always Glimmer,' was a lyrical wonder, but when an illness on tour left her unable to sing, she made her ambient album 'Mia Gargaret' (another cheeky title!) which revealed a keen intuition for arrangement and composition not fully shown on 'There's Always Glimmer's lyrical songs. 'Romantic Piano', too, is almost totally without words. 'Writing instrumental music, in general, is a much more joyful process than I find in lyrical songwriting', she says. 'The process ultimately effects my songwriting'. And while Margaret has more songwriterly material on the way, 'Romantic Piano' solidifies her as a compositional force.
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