Under The Influence

I stumbled across Joan on the internet one day and was very impressed by the few samples I heard... then I forgot about her/them. It was seeing them billed for Rock Werchter that refuelled my interest.

It sits reasonably close to standard american, piano playing female pop rock, but the deviation is wide enough that one has to give it more attention. Eternal Flame jumped out at me straight away - very interesting chord progression. The whole thing is quite dark.

Listening to it again I think that it was the loss of the subtleties in the concert killed a bit of the inspiration for me. This is actually really cool.

Ok. So there's a bit of a story behind the name of this album. See, apparently this guy, Leon, was an absolutely brilliant pianist some years ago until RSI or some such went ahead and ruined one of his hands. As a result he spent years studying (and conducting) the music he loved, striping it down to its core. Skip forward to now.

Somehow Leon's managed to get the use of both of his hands back and the results are lovely. Bach, Scarlotti, Chopin, Debussy and Schubert without the frills. It's pure spirit. The soul of the songs is left completely exposed. Incredible work.