Album Notes

A collection of BEAUTIFUL and POWERFUL tracks that will take you somewhere else while you listen to them...this album is going to take over your solo piano collection!

Like this album? If you do, please check out 'Light' (http://cdbaby.com/cd/mtj3), the other half of this 30 track duo!

Read the first review written by music analyst Ken Pipher......

Solo Pianist Matthew Tavis Johnson has done it again. With the release of his fourth album, “Dark”, comes a plethora of powerful, creative and emotional melodies that are sure to keep you listening over and over again. This collection starts off with the gentle “Sakura”, wrapping around you like a warm bedtime lullaby. This warmth quickly dissipates, however, as the raw melancholy of “For Those Unloved” leaves you with a sense of longing and interminable emptiness. Equally morose is the somber and aptly named “Blackness.” Just when you feel as though you won’t survive the shedding of another tear, tracks like “Full of Happiness” and “Within Bright Colors” come to the rescue and adroitly lift your spirits. This incredible juxtaposition of emotions brings you down only to pull you right back up. Johnson’s uncanny ability to translate music into pure, tangible nostalgia is simply amazing. I can’t tell you how many times I found myself daydreaming about days long since gone while listening to this CD.

I also found inspiration in the up-tempo “Chasing a Dream”; which left me with a feeling of hope and triumph at its conclusion. “The Joker” bestows a more classical touch to the album while “To a Faraway Land” will literally sweep you away from the world. “Running through the Dandelions” and “Incomplete Thoughts” are both beautiful melodies that will grab hold of you for a full three minutes and never truly let you go. Wanting to make sure there was a little something for everyone, Johnson included a preview of his lyrical talents, written for his original composition “My Angel”, with the help of up and coming vocalist Justin Hyogen Lee. This is a first for Johnson and, in my opinion, he pulled it off remarkably.

At the pinnacle of your feel-good sensations is arguably one of the best pieces of piano mastery you will ever hear – “In the Clouds.” If you can only listen to one more song in your life, make sure it’s this one. It’s artistry like this that makes me so anxious to see what Matthew Tavis Johnson comes up with next. I invite and encourage you to share the experience I have had with this incredible album – do yourself a favor and take it home today.