An Album a Day #2026-11

Notes

What if you could bottle up the sounds of standing in a small brook, gurgling over rocks at dusk, the water lapping at your feet? What music would come out of the bottle if you turned those sounds into a song? I'm pretty sure the answer is Suwon Yim's piano on Oaks & Maples.

I've never heard the piano pedal as it sounds on this record. I don't mean the sustain effect. I mean the sound of the pedal itself. Is she using both the sustain and the damper pedals? I don't know, but she achieves a stunning organic quality. Her piano isn't a machine; it's a living organ of the earth itself.

You can hear the piano strings resonating outside of the notes she plays. This lends both a shimmering quality and a beautifully dissonant atmosphere creating a dream-like, Kafkaesque ambiance. It all adds up to deeply introspective album that is equally at home lulling you to sleep as it is awakening in you an awe of natural beauty.

Listen

What is "An Album a Day"?

Each day in 2026, I'm listening to an album that:

1. I've never heard before
2. Was released in the last six months (from the time of listening)