Henosis (Deluxe) Joep Beving

• 1 Unus mundus 04:18
• 2 Into The Dark Blue 03:39
• 3 Whales 02:12
• 4 Sirius 01:35
• 5 Shepherd 07:22
• 6 Orvonton 05:02
• 7 Sol And Luna 05:52
• 8 Klangfall 06:15
• 9 Philemon 03:01
• 10 Noumenon 05:37
• 11 Saudade da Gaia 03:59
• 12 Apophis 07:05
• 13 Aeon 05:48
• 14 Implikigo 02:25
• 15 Venus 03:55
• 16 Anima 02:38
• 17 Adrift In Aether - Breathing 00:42
• 18 Adrift In Aether 03:21
• 19 The One As Two 05:15
• 20 Henosis 06:45
• 21 Anamnesis 03:37
• 22 Nebula 08:56
• 23 Morpheus' Dream 02:15
• 24 Klangfall 05:51
• 25 Orvonton 04:39
• 26 Sol And Luna 04:25
• 27 Shepherd 05:24
• Total Runtime 02:01:53

Info for Henosis (Deluxe)

“This is my journey, and my search for understanding,” says Beving, the acclaimed composer/pianist who rose to eminence in 2015 thanks to millions of streams of the contemplative, atmospheric Solipsism. By now he is one of the most streamed pianists in the world.

“I believe that the answers are much more on the inside,” he explains. “So this journey, in a way, is also an internal one. My hope is to give people a space to be in for a couple of minutes or hours where they feel things just seem to be right, like a recognition that they’re understood or that they can just be.”

On HENOSIS the Dutch composer continues his minimalist and at times romantic style of writing, but this time explores new territories. It sets off where his sophomore album Prehension left us, the warm intimate sound of the Schimmel piano Beving inherited from his grandmother. With the help of producer Gijs van Klooster and through collaborations with Cappella Amsterdam, Echo Collective and Maarten Vos, Joep Beving opens up new musical worlds using orchestral and electronic sounds alongside the familiar piano.

Joep Beving’s music speaks for itself. Henosis, the grand and sprawling closing chapter in a trilogy of albums, was a journey into the vastness of the cosmos and his most dramatic collection of songs to date. Now three new visual elements – a short film and two music videos – seek to help deepen our understanding of the ideas informing the record, adding further layers to Beving’s work and complimenting the richness of the sonic world he’s created.

‘Anamnesis’ is the concept of recollection, especially that of a supposed previous existence, and provides the central inspiration for filmmaker Michaël I. Sewandono’s stunning new short film, Henosis – Anamnesis. A longtime friend of Beving, Dutchman Sewandono is an acclaimed independent film director and artist in his own right, who has written and directed numerous short films and music videos, and has exhibited his art at prestigious institutions and film festivals all over the world.

Of this particular project, Sewandono says: “I wanted to create something that connects with the idea of Joep Beving’s new album: unity as the goal of all things and the idea of a presence of something larger, that we are all part of a constant movement where nothing endures.” The film follows the fractured narrative of multiple characters, unaware they are mimicking each other across time and space yet sharing an inner voice, and the innate knowledge that people are said to possess.

Shot in three parts of the world, the cinematography is beautiful and captivating in equal measure. The camera lingers poignantly: on a table laden with sand, a stoic old man sculpting the grains with his bare hands; on a woman’s fingers as she draws them gently through water in a dish. “I’ve always been a fan of Sewandono’s aesthetics,” says Beving, “and I’m really happy with the imagery and the whole atmosphere of the film. In a way it’s very simple, but it’s also very layered; you can look at in different ways, or just give into what you are seeing.”

That second option is the best way to experience the two music videos created by artist Floris Schönfeld. Images used in the videos are part of his NATURA* project that was shot at the legendary visual effects facility Trumbull Studios. Beving is at pains to stress that Henosis is as much an internal journey – “I believe that the answers are much more on the inside” – as one to the great, black void that is the edge of the universe, and the videos reflect that; ‘Henosis’ is the outward journey, ‘Klangfall’ the inward. The former, all mournful strings and woozy synths, represents “super deep space”; colourful, celestial flares blaze out from an eclipse, gradually replaced with an inky blackness as the song reaches its denouement.

For the otherworldly ‘Klangfall’, coloured oil was filmed through a microscope, the beads churning and roiling, creating epic, ever-changing patterns. At times, it’s like watching cells interact, the metaphor – viewing the very building blocks of life – crystal clear. There’s a real power to the imagery, one that chimes perfectly with the majesty of Henosis itself. “There’s a solitude there, but also this grandness; it can be experienced as very daunting or far away from you, but you understand that it’s within you too. It’s all part of the self.”

Bringing images and music together creates worlds for the mind to travel through and wonder about, leaving a lasting effect on those willing to explore. In Beving’s life, as in his music, he seeks to establish deeper connections between those he terms “wandering souls”; these videos, and particularly Henosis – Anamnesis, help achieve precisely this, adding vitality and complexity to an already stellar body of work.

Joep Beving, piano

Joep Beving
They say you need three things to succeed in the music business – talent, timing and luck. Plus a little something extra to get you noticed. Joep Beving has all four in abundance.

At nearly six foot ten, with his wild hair and flowing beard, the Dutch pianist resembles a friendly giant from a book of children’s fairy tales. But his playing – understated, haunting, melancholic – marks him out as the gentlest of giants, his delicate melodies soothing the soul in these troubled times.

“The world is a hectic place right now,” says Joep. “I feel a deep urge to reconnect on a basic human level with people in general. Music as our universal language has the power to unite. Regardless of our cultural differences I believe we have an innate understanding of what it means to be human. We have our goosebumps to show for it.”

Joep’s music is the antidote to that hectic world of uncertainty and fear – a soundtrack for a kinder, more hopeful future; a score for the unmade film of lives yet to come. “It’s pretty emotional stuff,” agrees Joep. “I call it ‘simple music for complex emotions’. It’s music that enhances images, music that creates a space for the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.”

As for the rest of Joep Beving’s story, it’s one of good fortune and better timing.

Joep (pronounced “Yoop”) first formed a band at 14 and made his live debut in his local town’s jazz festival. He left school torn between a life in music and a career in government. When a wrist injury forced him to abandon his piano studies at the Conservatoire and focus on an Economics degree, it seemed that music’s loss would be the Civil Service’s gain.

But the draw of music was too strong. “It was always in my heart,” he says, “and it always will be.” Reaching a compromise between his two conflicting paths, he spent a decade working for a successful company matching and making music for brands. “But I always had a love-hate relationship with advertising – I was never comfortable using music to sell people stuff they don’t need”.

In his spare time he played keyboards with successful Dutch nu-jazz outfit The Scallymatic Orchestra and self-styled “electrosoulhopjazz collective” Moody Allen, and dabbled in electronica with his one-man project I Are Giant. But, by his own admission: “It was not me. I had not found my own voice”.

That began to change during a trip to Cannes for the Lions Festival – the Oscars of the advertising world – when he played one of his compositions at the grand piano at his hotel... and people started to cry. “It was the first time I had seen the emotional effect my music could have on an audience.”

Encouraged by the response, Joep organised a dinner party for close friends at his home in Amsterdam, where he played them his music on the piano left to him by his late grandmother in 2009. “It was the first time my friends had heard me play music they thought should travel outside my living room. It was the push to pursue the dream of doing a solo album with just my instrument.”

A month later a close friend died unexpectedly, and Joep composed a piece for his funeral service. “I performed it for the first time at his cremation. Afterwards people encouraged me to record it so that it would be a permanent memorial to him. He was an extraordinary person.”

Inspired by the reaction, Joep wrote more tunes and recorded them in single takes over the course of the next three months in his own kitchen, playing in the still of night while his girlfriend and two young daughters were asleep. The result was his debut album Solipsism.

Turned down by the only record label he had approached, he paid to press 1,500 vinyl copies, with artwork by Rahi Rezvani (who also made the stunning video for “The Light She Brings”). Joep staged the album launch in March 2015, in the studio of hot Amsterdam fashion designer Hans Ubbink, and performed it there for the first time.

That first vinyl pressing quickly sold out, mainly to friends, and the songs were an instant hit on Spotify, whose team in New York added one tune – “The Light She Brings” – to a popular ‘Peaceful Piano’ playlist. “People started saving the tune, so they put another one on. Then they started liking the whole of my album.” Soon Solipsism was a viral phenomenon, with another tune, “Sleeping Lotus”, now approaching 20 million streamed plays.

As a result of his huge online success, Joep was invited to perform on a prime-time Dutch TV show. The following day his album knocked One Direction off the top of the charts. “Then, a few days later, Adele made her comeback – and I was history,” he laughs. But by then he had made his mark.

He was besieged by concert promoters offering shows, including a prestigious solo recital at Amsterdam’s famous Concertgebouw and his album found its way to Berlin when another friend played it in her local bar, “at 2am with everyone smoking and drinking Moscow Mules.” By chance, one of those night owls was Deutsche Grammophon executive Christian Badzura. After making contact online, they met when Joep performed at Berlin’s Christophori Piano Salon – and ended up signing with the world’s foremost classical label.

The first fruits of the new partnership are Prehension. A natural successor to Solipsism, it carries forward the musical and philosophical themes Joep identifies in his music. “I am reacting to the absolute grotesqueness of the things that are happening around us, in which you feel so insignificant and powerless that you alienate yourself from reality and the people around you because it is so impossible to grasp. I just write what I think is beautiful, leaving out a lot of notes, telling a story through my instrument, trying to unite us with something simple, honest and beautiful.”

This album contains no booklet.