Peter Van Zandt Lane Delivers Axils

A release from Peter Van Zandt Lane delivers a gorgeous set of emotionally driving pieces of music that each bring with its own particular textures and moods and invite you along to take these individual Journeys.

The Axils record boasts a lot of cinematic haunt and ever-changing progressive Behavior with a chamber and orchestral tonality and contemporary classical undertone that really feels like it all came from some authentic place.

The strings, especially the violin in this set of performances, are outstanding, along with these brilliant piano pieces that are riddled with exciting and sort of adventurous tonalities, including saxophone, and one piece in particular called "Anabranch" has a wonderful and almost outlandish approach that feels rambunctious in a sense. You go through this range of emotion and excitability, waves of intensity, and it all has this heavy-handed theatrical undertone to it.

So as the release unfolds, you get pulled deeper into the composer's world and step away from your reality.

Each track comes through as its own experience or adventure and this is one of the things I adore about the record as a whole.

The performances and Arrangements, compositions and approaches are all done with a lively and almost spirited, animated, and slightly intense matter and this brings the pieces to life in a very particular way.

Songs like "nodes.branches.loops" range is one of the most experimental, in my opinion, and this is because it breeds that sporadic and all those rambunctious approaches with Plucky percussion sounding approaches and these layers of saxophone that sit on top of each other, creating ascending and descending steps, overlapping, and harmonizing.

This is such a gorgeous approach because again, it brings such liveliness to the music. It feels like you're communicating with something.

Then are pieces like "Coastal Portrait: Cycles and Thresholds", which showcase more of that cinematic and expansive stringed instrument soundscapes.

It's pieces like this that sort of swell and pulse with inhales and exhales, giving you a little bit more of that darker edge at times, and it all propels this inner thought process or certain kinds of visuals that pop off in your head automatically.

The conceptual and visual interpretation will be different for each listener but they will have it. This automatic sort of visualization that happens when you hear these songs is unavoidable.

It can be beautiful, again, it might be a little haunting, or dark, but it's something that takes you away from where you are and lets you breathe in a different place.

To me, just that level of escapism is worth listening to alone.

Throughout this, you do actually have some different kinds of slightly experimental tones that come in and out of play as well. There is some digital experimentation in the mix of the pieces that adds some of that extra darkness, grit, or haunt at times.

This made it more cinematic and very engulfing.

The whole record is gorgeous with pieces that range from 8 minutes to almost 13, and if you listen to it from start to finish, it is again, one of the best forms of escapism you've experienced in quite a long time. At least it was for me.

This was a beautifully performed, orchestrated, and conducted set of pieces that really have a unique approach, blending different elements of chamber and contemporary classical and orchestrated music to create this amazing atmosphere, and once you're in that atmosphere, you don't really want to leave it again.

Fortunately, this record is a great length, and this is one that felt amazing to dive into.

Check this out as soon as you can, and you can see exactly what I mean.

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