Flower Through Concrete
Chloe Flower released through Sony Music Entertainment Masterworks
Chloe Flower has released her first album. The self-titled release features original compositions as well as famous piano pieces from the classical repertoire.
The concept album is presented in three parts like a concert programme.
Act 1 starts with ‘Innocence’. Over a beautiful Schumann piece (from scenes from childhood), New Age Faith healer intones that ‘innocence is the symphony of the universe. We have music deep inside our consciousness, and we dance to it before we know the tune’. The original compositions that follow show Chloe’s gift for melody and technical piano playing. ‘Rise Up’ is a pastoral sounding-piece that has some impressive piano runs and is accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments.
Act 2 is titled ‘suffering’ and begins with an extract from Moonlight Sonata and some more Deepak Chopra ramblings about ‘feeling the anguish’, which might come across as grating depending on your tolerance for alternative philosophy. The next tracks are dark and menacing, and here Chloe combines the classical style with pounding hip hop beats. This style has introduced Chloe to wider fame and attention.
The final Act, titled Hope, ends on an optimistic note. There is a cover of the Billie Eilish song Bad Guy features more of the hip hop beats and the final song ‘popsical’ is a summation of Chloe’s genre-mashup of classical and pop music.
Overall, I enjoyed Chloe’s album. The classical pieces are well chosen and fit into the album’s themes. The spoken intros to some of the tracks became irritating. It would be interesting to have some collaborations with other artists to add vocals to Chloe’s talented piano stylings.
Rating: ***and a half