Soothe Your Soul with The 'Shelter' of Thomas Bartlett's Piano Nocturnes

[Cover photo credit to York Tillyer]

Pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett has released a solo album, Shelter, composed during quarantine, and featuring eight "piano nocturnes" that are named after types of roses.

The album was written "as a love letter to his partner, British actress and singer Ella Hunt, as well as to New York City itself, his home for 21 years".

Bartlett has been performing for over twenty years as Doveman, alongside The National, David Byrne, Nico Muhly, Anohni, and also in his own supergroup, The Gloaming.

As a producer, Bartlett has collaborated with St. Vincent, Rhye, Yoko Ono, Mandy Patinkin, and Sufjan Stevens.

Bartlett composed in the form of the nocturne since it's been a favorite since childhood, though he had "been wary of composing in such an emotional style". 

Bartlett explains:

“In the total strangeness of the moment and the lockdown. I gave myself permission to do a thing that I don’t usually do, in terms of how these pieces to me are kind of shameless in their sentimentality.

There’s a space that I really love to be in, as a listener, and as a player. It’s a feeling of arrival, and comfort, and peace. It’s an easy place for me to get to, but one that I’m suspicious of because of that.”