Romantic Piano, the new album from Chicago-based musician Gia Margaret, is out today on Jagjaguwar. In conjunction, Margaret presents the video for album standout “City Song.”
Romantic Piano follows Margaret’s acclaimed 2020 album, Mia Gargaret, and was teased by lead singles “Hinoki Wood b/w Cicadas.” Romantic Piano’s spare, gentle works evoke a classic sensibility; its compositions conjure the sublime themes of Romantic poets: solitude in nature, nature’s ability to heal and to teach; a sense of contended melancholy. Romantic Piano is curious, calming, patient and incredibly moving — but it doesn’t overstay its welcome for more than a second. As Stereogum writes in their recent feature of Gia Margaret, “Though Romantic Piano is brief, it’s incredibly powerful — designed for full immersion, even as our attention spans dwindle.”
Of “City Song,” Margaret says: “‘City Song’ song feels heavier than the other songs on Romantic Piano in the same way that being in the city feels much heavier to me than being out in an open field. I thought it could serve as a more potent pause in a lighter natured sequence of music. An inversion to the way an instrumental song can serve as a brief but necessary moment of lightness in a heavier lyric-based record. It is partly reflective on core memory. It seems both random and fated that a passing moment can mean so much later on (and sometimes forever!). More abstractly, this song ponders a strange occurrence I’ve experienced: that a flash of memory can feel like a message from a spirit/guardian of someone or something beyond me.”
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