The latest album by Ukrainian composer Lubomyr Melnyk, titled Rivers and Streams, has been released today under the label Erased Tapes. This new LP arrives after a lengthy period of 40 years during which Melnyk’s music remained largely unnoticed, despite his considerable productivity during this time.
Throughout his life, Melnyk has dedicated himself to mastering various techniques, both physical and psychological, enabling him to become one of the fastest pianists in the world. He currently achieves an impressive speed of 19 notes per second.
In the process of refining his extraordinary playing speed, Melnyk developed a distinctive approach he terms ‘continuous music,’ rooted in minimalism, where notes are played in an ongoing manner, evoking the fluidity of a relentless stream of consciousness.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/225142067″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
Melnyk’s music, along with his new album, encapsulates a profound wisdom that might resonate more with an older audience, yet his powerful, visceral soundscapes have captivated a younger crowd drawn to electronic music. His intriguing style parallels the dedicated following of neoclassical composers like Nils Frahm, with whom he now shares a label.
Similar to Frahm and upbeat electronica, Melnyk’s compositions are characterized by subtle variations that unfold over extended periods of repetition. He crafts a relentless flow of mesmerizing fluidity that challenges the notion of individual notes or the ability of a single musician to convey such expansive rivers and streams.
Melnyk compares his performance methods to the elevated states reached by masters of Kung Fu. “You might wonder: ‘Is it a state of mind?’ It’s not. It’s a state of the body,” he shared with Resident Advisor in a recent conversation. “The Kung Fu expert can achieve astonishing feats because their body has become ethereal, like a translucent aura of energy, and they are just manipulating it.”
The album is now available in CD, vinyl, and digital formats.
- Get your copy of Rivers and Streams at Erased Tapes
- Follow Lubomyr Melnyk on Twitter
- Listen to Lubomyr Melnyk on Soundcloud
