Album Review: Solo Piano II by Chilly Gonzales

At almost three centuries old and five to nine feet in length, the piano flies in the face of musical progress. In today’s world, grubby 16-year olds etch together sounds from the bowels of their bedrooms. It doesn’t matter what they play or how they play it, all they need is a knack for GarageBand and an ear for a bit-mapped beat. There’s little room for the piano in this get-the-hits-out-quick blueprint.

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It's fair to say that Chilly Gonzales has not followed a traditional career path. Early on a comedy rapper with surprising wit, later a foil to his touring counterpart Peaches, still later a Berlin-based dance producer of throwback house, and, finally, through it all (going back to his college days at McGill University), a composer for piano and performer, he's followed a career arc that probably isn't even visible to Gonzales himself. His first album of Solo Piano appeared in 2004, revealing his skills on the keyboard to be primarily as a contemplative pastoralist rather than a furious virtuoso.

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Tranquillity triumphs on the erudite Canadian’s latest album. Wyndham Wallace 2012 Though he’s best known for his mischievous, multiple redefinitions of hip hop – including his last release (The Unspeakable…) which, he claimed, was the world’s first orchestral rap album – Chilly Gonzales is far from the wag he sometimes likes to portray himself as. An erudite, articulate Canadian who started teaching himself piano at the age of three, he simultaneously baffled and beguiled fans in equal measure with his first album of piano solos in 2004, and this collection looks set to do the same.

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