Explorations For Keyboard And Orchestra

[wasteland]

Most of you are probably well aware of JR's Pledgemusic.com campaing for funding the big JR-Explores project.

A few months ago the piano solo album All That Is Now was released together with the interactive app Explore. A couple of days ago it finally was the big orchestral epic piece's turn to see the light in it's ultimate form (it was originally composed in 2010 - marking the first collaborations between Jordan and Eren Basbug - and the first movement was played a couple of times ever since at JR shows). Right now it's available for download to those who pledged any amount of money, and physical CDs are being pressed for those who chose those pledging options. I'm fairly sure Explorations will be made available for others as well through whatever mean JR will elect.

It's a piece rather unlike anything JR has ever done within or without DT, but at the same time feels like the direct consequence of all the pieces of music JR scattered through his 20+ years career.

Here's the (simple) tracklist:

Explorations:
-   I  : 10:12
-   II : 6:53
-   III: 8:47

What I can personally say is that I adore this piece. I've always loved it, since I first heard a not so legal recording of the seminal performance of the first movement in Venezuela in 2010. Ever since I asked Eren pretty much every three months when Exp was going to be recorded properly (thank you Eren for not kicking me out of your FB friends at the time! ) and today I can safely that it was well worth the wait. (By the way, those are the only words I managed to say to Jordan when I met him outside the venue gates two days ago)

Now, is there anybody else here who pledged and listened to this? 

[Shadow2222]

Yep, and it is fantastic!! Love it, and I definitely think I will like it even more with each listen!

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

I pledged, but I'm not listening until I receive the CDs.

[Lucidity]

I pledged, and I'm sort of torn about Explorations. The parts that I love I just absolutely love, and I think a lot of it is just incredible. but as with almost all of his solo music, I feel like he often adds quirky little parts and strange meter shifts deliberately to make the music more complex and hard to follow. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it can be somewhat annoying, especially since he's proven many times that he's more than capable of writing a very strong, simple melody.

I also wish he had left the rock elements of his music right out of it... the drums feel completely out of place to me. And I realize he's trying to push the boundaries and combine different genres, but I feel this type of music just works better within a solely orchestra and piano context. A part of me wishes it was better, since I feel like it could be much better... Nonetheless, I still love it.