Tim Story
Beguiled

American pianist and composer of great sensitivity and refinement, Tim Story is not very well known here, although over the decades he has built up a following. The delicacy and aforementioned sensitivity of this artist offer in this album the pinnacle of his style, crafting a musical continuum made of small aquatic and floral vignettes that draw from various streams without fully embodying any. Precisely because "Beguiled" is the work that best represents the artist in his emotional dimension and, therefore, manifests his true original nature.
Represented by a 4AD-style cover, I wouldn't entirely classify this album as ambient nor even as new-age, given the intense echoes of dreampop and contemporary romanticism. The electronic sounds blend perfectly with the acoustic ones, and the cultural imprint transcends any temporal reference. Ultimately, this is music that would move both a man of the nineteenth century and a man of the twenty-second century.
Tim Story has remained a niche composer, with his own loyal following and an undefined musical positioning, so to speak. Few people in Italy know him, but even in his homeland, he has not received massive recognition. In the shadow of the more renowned Eno and Budd (to name a couple), he has continued to produce his works with humility and great consistency.

In "Beguiled," various instrumental tracks stand out like intense watercolors that seem to inspire the dream and melancholy of places removed from the frenzies and the ugliness of contingency. "Pale Litany," "Helen Of The Best," "Her Cathedral," and the eponymous "Beguiled" possess the evocative lightness that we have found in certain works by Mick Karn and David Sylvian, but also in some passages of Talk Talk and in certain atmospheres of the brighter Dead Can Dance.