Kym Alexandra Dillon’s first solo album is a portal to new worlds.
The piano seems to be an extension of Kym Dillon. She can find entire orchestras within the ivories.
She does not require words to speak. Her dynamism and expression transforms the solo piano into an entire soundscape, weaving worlds from her imagination into tangible, tastable sonic experiences. It’s hard to believe it’s just Kym, in a room, with a piano.
Her first solo album VENDESTINY is an eight-track solo piano journey that debuted with the single Vanishing Act.
“To me the piano to me is this limitless portal with which I can conjure these worlds around me. There’s nothing that isn’t possible – that’s the way I feel about the piano.”
VENDESTINY (album launch)
- When:
- Where: Melbourne Recital Centre
- Tickets here
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I spoke with Kym last June, when VENDESTINY had been recorded and was being mixed by audio engineer Ben Anderson. At that time, Kym was uncertain about the future of the album. She had something magical on her hands, something that spoke from her soul to that of her audience.
Now, it’s been picked up by Amica Records and set to release on April 14, with a sold-out album launch at the Melbourne Recital Centre on April 17.
“Over the last year, I’ve just been listening to the album so much for my own enjoyment” she laughed. “It’s been this lovely thing where though I was part of making it, now exists as its own thing that I can now encounter and enjoy as well.”
Kym first introduced VENDESTINY to me as the notion of overlapping destiny: within ourselves, between each other and as a species. Kym has been living with the album now for over a year. The title, she says still resonates deeply with the sound and story of her music.
“For me, VENDESTINY sits on the periphery of language. It seems to be this hovering, abstract thing that ‘could be this or that’. This fluid state of mind is where I think best prepares people to go on this journey. It gets you ready to travel in all the directions and styles this music takes you.”
Kym has so many facets to her artistic practice as a performer, conductor, jazz musician, public speaker, and composer.
“I needed something that felt like it was going to sum up this sense of all the different paths you could possibly take as a human being, and what it would feel like to hold them together. Something that would take away the pressure of just having to choose one, instead holding that complexity within yourself and embracing all the possible different directions.”
It’s something that Kym believes many people, especially creatives can relate to. Those who have many outlets for their creativity but feel they must confine themselves to a particular discipline.
“Having peace with the complexity and celebrating it is part of what [VENDESTINY] means to me. I think of it, and then listen to the album, and suddenly the music opens up. It’s like a key.
The album is filled with what Kym called “piano maximalism”.
“A lot of solo piano music now would fit into the category of minimalism, in the sense that musical ideas are stripped back to slowly grow and gradually unfold. It’s a beautiful thing in its own way, but I rather think of what I do as piano maximalism, a welcome experience to celebrate just how expansive a piano can be.”
Despite her extensive musical resume, this is Kym’s first solo album as a performer.
“In today’s musical environment where there are limitless possibilities through software, I’ve felt a calling to come back to this idea of just a person and a piano, in a room, and what that can do. There’s something ancient about the feeling of just a person playing a piano in a room”.
“I think what happens on this album will make people open their minds to just what limitless possibilities there are from that humble scenario.”
As Kym created VENDESTINY, she didn’t adhere to the traditional structure of composing.
“I found that as a performer my best work comes when there is some element of improvisation or freedom of expression in the moment”.
The improvisation and impulsivity of Kym’s creativity has not been confined to her creation process, but her performance of the album too.
“Whenever I play these pieces now, they’re still evolving in the sense that I am discovering little nooks and crannies where I change a couple of notes here and there. The pieces still feel like they are alive to me, they feel like they are fizzing with energy.
“That’s what I was trying to capture in the recordings on the album, this sense that they are compositions but there this something alive about them, something a little bit wild that can’t be contained by notes on a page.
“I still feel that listening to it now, it’s got that untameable energy to it.”
Kym is interwoven throughout the album, the conduit across the river of the human experience where she ferries us as a community through heartbreak and hope.
Fare Thee Well is the second last track of VENDESTINY. Kym wrote the piece at the end of a long-term relationship.
“It’s kind of a thank you letter to some of the composers that have had the most influences on my sound, Keith Jarret, Franz Lizst, a bit of Beethoven. It’s a letter of gratitude to those people, musically.
“Then it mixes with this feeling that I had about the end of this relationship, wishing someone well and being grateful for the time you had with them whilst there are hard feelings involved. I found that musically it becomes something people can find themselves in.
“I’ve always had a heart for creating musical experiences that welcome in listeners from all walks of life. I have worked with social inclusion choirs for many years where I found myself just wanting to share the experience of music with everyone, no matter who they were.”
To experience the worlds woven by Kym and her piano, you can find VENDESTINY where you listen to your music.
For more information, head here.
