As the name suggests, it’s an album marked by wild fluctuations in style. The real surprise of Contrast though is the sheer depth and variety of sound Belio accomplishes. And not only that, but Belio truly fulfills the one-man band criteria as he performs all guitars (other than a couple of guest spots), most of the piano, all bass, and all drums with an almost maddening level of deftness. Not only does the album showcase an impressive and wide-spanning array of musical styles and influences – from heavy Meshuggah chugging and riffage, to the more elaborate and operatic work of Devin Townsend, to the frenetic and bright jazz of Tigran Hamasyan (and even a direct quote from A Sense of Gravity) – but he manages to piece them together with a strong compositional voice all his own that moves well past mere homage and tribute. This young French native has been on our radar ever since the release of his epic and phenomenal album Contrast in 2014. But even by those standards, Clément Belio is kind of a freak of nature. It is the waves in storm of our initial imagining it is Cloudkicker at his best and a true beacon for one man bands, instrumental or otherwise.īeing a one-man band by necessity requires being skilled at many things. The “story”, shattered as it is and created only by the track titles, is of a confused and meaningless modernity, a philosophical wasteland. It is also Sharp’s heaviest work: dense, massive and breakneck, the album rarely slows down but instead pummels us with riff on top of riff on top of improvising leads.
This album is a masterpiece of modern, instrumental music: it flirts with the chugged phrases of djent but mixes them with an infinity of leads, intricate drum lines and haunting synths. If you want the ultimate Cloudkicker experience however, Beacons is where your heart pulls you. Sharp has it all, kicking clouds left and right whether he handles bright mountain tops or deep, churning trenches of ocean. Subsume is true to its album cover, sun glimpsed through hazy trees. The Discovery is raw and primal, progressive in its honesty and delivery. Do you long for intimate, warm hummings? Woum holds all you need, a personal, close, fragile album that will charm you with its wiles.
If you seek peace and grand beauty, go for Let Yourself Be Huge: its post-rock influenced melodies will scatter you and make your heart expand. Ben Sharp’s wizardry can only be described as a complete scene, a complex and intricate tapestry, because that’s how it is: it weaves, ducks, rolls, collapses and coalesces into new and beautiful forms. The picture then races out, out and above to about 20,000 feet where it rotates backwards to look at the sea in storm and you standing there by the shore, breathing quickly with fists clenched and sweating. Right there, at the peak of your excitement and on that stony, cold shore, freeze frame everything. In fact, your heart is doing about 100 BPM and your breathing is shallow. However, the wind and the tinge of salt is exhilarating. Now, the sea is at storm but for some reason the waves don’t reach you, the sea spray falling just short. It’s not the idyllic shore of a postcard but rather what a shore actually looks like.
#One man band piano free
And of course, feel free to comment with further suggestions of exceptional musicians who handily do it all. So without further ado, sit back and reminisce with us over our favorite one person projects, or enjoy discovering what any one of these twelve musicians has to offer.
Because while this crew may not have been the most social group on the playground, they spent their alone time producing some of our favorite music and proving that collaboration isn’t a necessity for quality tunes. From guitar porn to one man black metal to a whole slew of electronic subgenres, these artists prove that “strength in numbers” may not apply to everyone. Going over the twelve entries we’ve selected as the cream of the musical loner crop, it’s amazing to see not only the variety of genres present, but the fact that such enormous, impactful music can come from a single individual.
#One man band piano series
You can read more entries from this series here. Heavy Blog Is Heavy’s Best Of series takes musical genres and categories and highlights our staff’s personal favorites.
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