New York-based composer Kevin Keller continues to dazzle and amaze with his ever-evolving yet uniquely signature style of award-winning music that combines ambient and electronica with cinematic and classical styles. Comprised of eight enchantingly beautiful pieces all named (and numbered 1-8) after the album’s title, Evensong, Keller’s latest masterpiece is no exception in his nearly three-decade recording career. What makes Evensong especially remarkable among this prolific artist’s repertoire is Keller’s thematic inspiration for this album – the transcendent and timeless music of Hildegard of Bingen. Born circa 1908, Bingen was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, herbalist, mystic, and philosopher whose divine musical works and writings have inspired countless artists, composers and creative thinkers across centuries.
On Evensong, Keller enlists four soprano singers (Danya Katok, Elisa Singer Strom, Katherine Wessinger, and Wendy Baker) who provide mesmerizing chants composed by Bingen on tracks 1, 3, 4, and 7 in addition to ethereal vocal textures throughout the album. Classical strings by Sarah Zun (violin), Angela Pickett (viola) and Laura Metcalf (cello) are also woven into Keller’s ambient neoclassical soundscapes, which seemingly transcend place and time with their flawless fusion of medieval and modern musical motifs. Illuminated by floating, shimmering and lightly pulsating electronic sequences that are variably accented by stringed instruments, bell tones, and encircling pipe organ figures throughout, the album’s haunting yet heavenly atmospheres evoke sacred and cosmic imagery, like that of a vaulted cathedral ceiling opening to reveal the majestic milky way.
Joining the ranks among other top-notch Bingen-inspired ambient/neoclassical albums like Vision by Richard Souther and Lux Vivens by Jocelyn Montgomery & David Lynch, Kevin Keller’s Evensong is one of the most magnificent albums I’ve heard in recent years and an absolute must-have for fans of this genre!
~Candice Michelle for Journeyscapes
For more information please visit the artist's website. Evensong is also available at Bandcamp and more!
