Ten days from now, Tranquillamente is out in the world.

I’ve been sitting with this record for a long time. Long enough that it stopped feeling like an album and started feeling like a year of my life that finally got to breathe. Twelve tracks. Solo piano. Recorded here in Ohio, in the same room I do everything — DoorDash bag by the door, Reaper open, no label, no deadline I didn’t set myself.

The title comes from a musical direction — tranquillamente, meaning “quietly,” “calmly.” It’s the instruction I kept writing to myself while making this record. Not because I was calm. Because I was trying to be.

There’s a track called “Lumen.” That’s the one I’m leading with, and it says most of what the album says in four minutes. Light not as warmth, but as the thing that shows you where you are — whether you wanted to see it or not. The rest of the twelve tracks move around that idea. Some of them are quieter. A few go somewhere darker before they come back.

I’ve been making music for about twenty years. I’ve made albums that were bigger in scope, louder, more layered. This one is the most stripped. Just the instrument, just the room, just whatever I had on a given day. I think that’s why it took longer to finish — there was nowhere to hide.

May 1st. I’ll drop the link when it’s live. Until then, “Lumen” is available to listen now. If you’ve been following along here, thank you for still being here. It means something.

— Matthew / Fracture & Form