Don’t let the monsters eat your soul wails Nir Blu in this latest recording from the pianist and composer. Though the message may be about pain, it delivers the melodic piano that we have come to expect from this talented musician.
“I was going for a hopeful message,” Blu told Coast Reporter, commenting on the overall dark tone of the album. “It came out as it came out – music takes you that way.”
Monsters is the third studio album by Nir Blu. Recorded at The Warehouse Studio in September 2017 and produced by Blu and Adam Greenholtz, it offers a glimpse into the artist’s soul.
The title track is piano heavy and was recorded live off the floor with bassist Darren Parris and drummer Flavio Cirillo. A string quartet arranged by Donovan Seidle of the Calgary Philharmonic accompanies two of the tracks and was added later. Blu performs on piano and guitar.
“It was important to me to record it live off the floor,” he said. “But it was challenging doing it that way.”
The album is hard to categorize as it jumps genres from song to song. “Don’t Let the Monsters Eat Your Soul” is essentially a slow rock song. “Leaving Today” is more like pop music: “I’ll always have room in my heart for you,” he sings.
“Don’t Let the Love Die” calls for stellar harmonies among instruments. “Work and Never Play” is mournful and spoken from the heart while “Moonless Night in Roberts Creek” is the pianist’s homage to “Moonlight Sonata”.
But like all Nir Blu albums the mood is dark. “Walk Away,” for example, sounds sad – a song of parting ways, but Blu suggests that it’s based on an incident in which his car was towed away after he had paid for a day of parking in Vancouver. He searched for it just one block away and noted the striking contrast in the downtown streets between the men in suits and pleasant fragrances in one block and the downtrodden and odorous in the other.
The album was self-funded and captures the same energy as a Nir Blu live show. There are not many opportunities to hear this musician, but some will remember his memorable performance at the Sechelt Arts Festival in 2016. Though he has recently moved to Horseshoe Bay, he still considers the Coast his home, and he will return on March 23 to perform from the new album at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons.
Blu is currently working on a virtual reality (VR) project using an array of music in which his avatar creates a 3D experience in full animation. He received a Music BC Innovation grant to assist him in making these VR productions, and he is also developing a video game to go along with the album, in which players get to fell the monsters – that is, killing your fears. If all goes well it could be released by this August.
Tickets for Blu’s show March 23 at the Heritage Playhouse are $15 in advance through his website (www.NirBlu.com) or $20 at the door.
