Let’s get this out of the way right now. Ian Williams’ new track is called ‘They Could Find No Cure’.
Taken from his recent acclaimed debut solo album, ‘The Dream Extortionists’, it was originally going to be released in January. It got delayed. Then, a global pandemic intervened and there never seemed to be a good time to mention a little bit of piano music with a title that professional offendees on social media would see as an open goal. We even waited until after Piano Day as a gesture of good will, not wanting to dampen the enthusiasm of all those civic-minded pianists trying to bring a little cheer to a troubled public.
So here it is, ‘They Could Find No Cure’…, every chord, every harmony steeped in misery, melancholy and doom. Pure Zeitgeist, right there. But it is quite short, so there is that in its favour, at least. And in itself it could be seen as an antidote to all that ‘four chord loop with a bit of really sincere and intimate emoting on top’ stuff that every desaturated telly detective wanders around to these days. And don’t even get us started on playlists, filled with armies of low paid drones with fake names like Sven Somethingorothersson, churning out ‘contemporary’ and ‘meditative’ piano music by the metre.
So, yes, you may find ‘They Could Find No Cure’ too dark, too disturbing, or too dreary, and want something jolly to brighten up your Government-imposed incarceration, but you won’t get that here. What you’ll get is something oddly beautiful, unpredictable and a bit different. And there’s a video for it of a broken chair.
Ian Williams started out in the 1980’s as a founder of Beautiful Pea Green Boat, whose ethereal, atmospheric sound pre-dated the current vogue for dream pop. More recently, he has worked with singer Claudia Barton as Gamine, releasing two albums of dark, piano-led torch songs and lullabies. He has also collaborated with Lebanese choreographer Joumana Mourad's dance company, Ijad, during which time he produced music for several productions, developing a hybrid Arabic / classical / techno / ambient style.
Ian has recently finished his first film soundtrack, for ‘Les Blessures Invisibles’ (Invisible Wounds), a documentary by French filmmaker Eric Michel which investigates the after-effects on Mounana, a town in Gabon, of being the location of a uranium mine that was the biggest supplier to France’s nuclear industry for nearly 40 years until it closed down in 1999. Further information, along with a single and video, will be available soon.
IAN WILLIAMS
THEY COULD FIND NO CURE video youtu.be/BDWz9kBszjo