Time To Feel By Francois Mathian

 

Time To Feel

By

Francois Mathian

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

The stringed wizardry of violinist Francois Mathian has been wooing the listeners for some years now, his unique style of new age, electronics and violin, has beautifully created a niche in a genre that has given him a remarkable distinctiveness from many others, and on this brand new album entitled Time To Feel, he pushes that envelope even further across the desk of brilliance.

The opening track is called Into The Yin, and strangely I am now on my third consecutive listen, Mathian’s impressive inimitable genius here is so fresh and textured that the tracks hovering intensity on keyboards and violin, becomes utterly addictive.

On Connecting we have a horse of a different colour, there is a clever mix of ambience and electronic mastery, that carefully edges within and across the boundaries of an Eno styled complexity, the string plucking and smooth transition into a fluent violin manifested a passage that is deeply creative to swim within.

We now move ever onwards to the piece Contemplating, the crafted ambient ethic continues its symbiotic entanglement with the strings of the violin, and so much so, that an almost meditative eastern styled ethic can be found here, one that I personally garnered a lot of satisfaction from. This is truly a wondrous and emotive performance on strings by Mathian. 

An electronic drop takes us to a new realm called Solitude, and this world of tone and atmospherics is so amazingly performed by Mathian that it is literally mesmerizing in its construction. If you ever wanted to hear one of the most stunning performances on violin by an artist in this field, then dive in here head long, it is spectacular to say the least, the hovering chimes reminded me of my Tibetan bowl; this offering would be all too easy to lose one’s self within completely.

Our penultimate composition is entitled Drift and such a dazzling moment of electronics and Violin has never been seen or felt as this, with the ambient measures of Eno and Deuter combined, Mathian’s performance here is a veritable floating cloud of meditative bliss.

Mindfulness is our last port of call, and the artist sets the narrative firmly into the now. Whilst listening to this I believe it would be possible to perform Tai Chi to it, the keyboards, bowls and chimes give us a truly cathartic energy to enjoy, whilst the fluency of the composition is controlled masterfully by the violin, to bring a wonderful grand stand finish to the album.

Time to Feel by Francois Mathian I rate as one of the foremost works of art in the ambient contemporary instrumental field I have heard for absolutely ages, The crafted and mindful presentations are eye catching and exquisite. Here is an album that if there was any justice in the musical world, would become a seminal work of art that would live on forever, in a timeless gallery of masterpieces entitled, focused intellect. An outstanding album indeed and one thoroughly recommended by this music writer.