Paul Machlis is an American composer and pianist who collaborated with Alasdair Fraser in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Theit duo album, Skyedance (1986), is one of my favorites, an excellent work for fiddle and piano.
Greenwoods is his second solo album, if I’m not mistaken. It’s an absolutely lovely work, instrumental music with recognizably Celtic flavor, with the compositions his own originals. Paul is American and so is this album: the soundscape is clean and polished and a bit new age-y in that 1990’s style, but it really doesn’t bother me that much because the tunes are so lovely.
It’s very well played by musicians who obviously know what they’re doing. Most of their names are unfamiliar to me because I am not too familiar with the American Celtic oriented folk music scene. But there is one name I definitely do recognize: Eric Rigler, the famous piper who has contributed to many movie and TV show scores and has played in the fabulous Celtic/Funk/rock band Bad Haggis and in Alasdair Fraser’s Skyedance band.
Greenwoods may be a bit too much musical wallpaper, all nice and polite, for some people’s taste. But for me, it works beautifully and I think it says something that when it was just playing in the background one day, my wife spontaneously said that this is absolutely beautiful music – and so it is.
*****
Greenwoods is available on all major web stores and streaming platforms.
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