Inner Hue by Anenon

‘Inner Hue’ is the debut full-length release from Non Projects founder and 2011 Red Bull Music Academy alum Brian Allen Simon.

While sharing similar stripped down recording approaches to the companion ‘Acquiescence’ EP, the music of ‘Inner Hue’ is an entirely different journey. With ‘Acquiescence’, the source material of grand piano and tenor saxophone remain fairly transparent, letting the instruments themselves tell the story, but with ‘Inner Hue’ Brian goes far deeper inside of the notes and takes the instrumentation of Rhodes piano and tenor saxophone into entirely new territories, coaxing nuanced textures and sounds with distinctive vocabulary unique to each track. An album that moves with sonic intent and abstract narrative, ‘Inner Hue’ naturally demands listening from start to finish, always revealing new paths with each play. This is personal, patient and thoughtful music to live inside of, or rather the music that lives inside of us, aching to get out.

Throughout ‘Inner Hue’, the sound of electric piano timbres remain prevalent - raw, elegant and crystallized into time, lucid tone colors embossed onto a tangible spectral audio field. Seductive and ruminating melodies run rampant, in shifting counterpoint with luxuriant, ageless textures, always with a corporeal melodic yearning. Sometimes physical and upfront, as when the saxophones roar over sturdy, cracking drums in “Murmurs” and layers of Rhodes build and amalgamate with double time percussive syncopations on the title track, or patiently ebbing and flowing through space on tracks like “Embers” and opener “Eighty-Four,” the timeless music of ‘Inner Hue’ is communicated with a unique and individualized finesse so rarely heard these days. A testament to Brian’s both formal and informal studies of composition over many years, ‘Inner Hue’ advances with a unique cinematic tension in the most organic of ways, coming to a harmonious close with “Entwine”, a highly visual piece of lullaby like high notes, raw bass tones, studied counterpoint and delicate ambience. An artist obsessed with building his own voice, no matter what palate he chooses, Anenon’s ‘Inner Hue’ truly marks only the beginning of a long and idiosyncratic life of music ahead.

Los Angeles,
2010—2015

nonprojects.net