Tetsuya Hori Delivers a Beautiful New Record

Composer, pianist, songwriter, and producer Tetsuya Hori has just returned with an eight-track record called Variations which does an amazing job of showcasing a sort of inner monologue through music, and these pieces are subtle but can be very intense at times, full of life and incorporate nature so that they take these beautiful natural elements from the world and input them into the music so that you get a certain kind of sense for what the songs bring in terms of emotional balance.

The record has a lot of beautiful piano work on it and of course this is Tetsuya's specialty along with being composer which is also done incredibly well throughout the course of this record because when you listen to it and it unfolds, you can picture things and let the music take you where it will.

As it is with a lot of Tetsuya's releases, each listener may take in the songs a little differently but that again, is part of the beauty of music as a whole. The beauty of instrumental and orchestral pieces like this is that it's very emotionally driven so it gives you that sort of premise in terms of where to begin. You get a grasp of the emotion behind the piece or the emotional journey that the piece displays.

This is the base of the premise for the songs but once you have those emotions given and you're soaking them in, the places that your mind takes you will be different from person to person.

Or at least that's how I would figure it. Everyone experiences life through their own eyes, and I feel like in a strange way that's part of what this record maybe about.

Variations of how people live and how nature exists in coherence with us.

Throughout some of these songs, you have again, that amazing piano work which is all played and performed with such a graceful touch of the artist's staples, but you also have gorgeous and lush string sections that come in and add even more emotional bountifulness to certain pieces and sometimes those parts and those tracks, can be intense especially if you close your eyes and listen to this record.

For example, once you get towards the end of the record, the 7th track which is actually "Variation V" is so just, robust and flowing because it's got cellos, violins, and pianos there's just such a vibrant and expansive texture to the whole thing, still driven by that emotional state, that you end up getting engulfed in everything about it.

We have had the pleasure of reviewing some of Tetsuya's previous releases and they all have an element of fantastical undertone at times, honesty through music, textural balance and lusciousness, and emotional drive however, I do feel for some reason that this record is a little bit more personal than some of the previous releases.

It feels almost as if this one came from a bit of a different place from within Tetsuya himself.

I'm sure all of the releases come from certain places like that to an extent but for some reason, I'm feeling that this one has almost more personal influence and I can't put my finger on exactly why but it's there.

During the course of the record, you also have interludes that are almost jazz connective along with the final track of the record called "Coda" which features some electronic undertone but, I'm not giving everything away.

You're going to have to listen to this record for yourself to really understand what I mean.

This will take you to other places which again, is something that this artist tends to do with his music. This is something that you will not get a lot by listening to standard stuff so when you listen to this it'll put you in a different state of mind within the first 5 minutes.

This was another beautiful release from Tetsuya Hori and if I were you, I would get familiarized with his material especially if you listen to even the first two songs on this release and fall in love with them.

See how this record affects you because it certainly will.

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