"Regret, doubt and reverie. Joy, love and bliss. The feeling of a warm cup of coffee. An evening kiss for the children."Tom Kristiaan is a pianist and neoclassical composer. His dreamy piano compositions have been listened to worldwide more than 40 million times and his album "Petites Danses et Rêveries" was nominated for the Edison Music Awards.
Now he has released his fifth album: "Moods" with the Amsterdam label Andante Piano. Moods contains 12 neoclassical piano compositions, composed and performed on felt piano by Tom Kristiaan.
Tom Kristiaan was inspired by the feelings and emotions we experience every day as human beings. Deeper feelings such as regret, doubt and reverie. But also positive feelings about joy, love and bliss. In other words, a beautiful mix of different atmospheres with plenty of variety.
The opener "Blessedness" immediately sets the tone. A powerful melody, as we can expect from Tom Kristiaan, makes you drift away into blissful spheres and takes you along like a gentle breeze without a moment of boredom. With more than 1 million streams, this song is the absolute standout and an absolutely beautiful beginning to an album full of variety.
With "Laughing in the Rain", Kristiaan stays in cheerful spheres, but a slightly more rhythmic play emerges, even though we should put 'rhythmic' in perspective: it remains neoclassical and dreamy. In the third piece "Reminiscence", the pianist takes you on a journey of reverie. The piano becomes quiet. The melancholy begins. Breathing becomes slow. But then suddenly a wonderfully light cheerful melody emerges, which takes away all sadness. It is as if the composer wants to say: looking back is sometimes with a tear, but also with a smile. Heartwarming.
"Evening Kiss" is about that evening kiss for the children before they go to sleep. This is the composer's own favorite piece: soft and tender. The felt piano creaks and sings at its best. The composer pours out his soul: 'less is more'. With few notes, a beautiful melodic line is formed, which lingers like a soft blanket.
We get a number of compositions where the melancholy and doubt that we often find in Kristiaan come to the surface: "Wandering in Thoughts", "Doubt & Hesitation" and also "Back & Forth". But pieces such as "Falling in Love", "Blissfull Moment", "Daydreaming" and the wonderfully beautiful waltz "Joy & Regrets" then provide light cheerful tones as variation.
In my opinion, the absolute mood-setter is "Morning Coffee". There Tom Kristiaan takes you into the warm, cozy atmosphere of a fresh cup of coffee in the morning. As you listen, you feel all those warm sunrays piercing through the morning window and you automatically drift away into another world.
Isn't that the beauty of music? Dreaming and imagining. And that is precisely the value of 'Moods' and the neoclassical tones of Tom Kristiaan: before you know it, you're in a soft, quiet atmosphere full of beautiful melodies and a touch of melancholy.
The album was produced by Patrick Hamilton (The Globe Recording Studios in Loppem). Mastering was done by Markus Nordlung (Sweden) and record label Andante Piano (Disruptive Records B.V.) from Amsterdam handles digital distribution.
Artist Melissa LescroArt specially designed the cover drawing for this album featuring girls depicting the various feelings. www.atelierlescro.art
The album is available online on all streaming platforms such as I-tunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, … or physically via www.tomkristiaan.com