Search - Fiona Joy Hawkins :: ICE - Piano Slightly Chilled

From MainlyPiano.com

Kathy Parsons | Florence, OR United States | 01/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This will be my last 2007 review (a year full of really great music), ending the year on an up-beat! When Fiona Joy Hawkins' teenagers called her a "classical music nerd," the pianist/composer known for her "music to dream to," set out to prove a point. To these ears, she more than proved it, composing, arranging, and recording an album that rocks, rolls, and has one great big good time! "Ice: Piano Slightly Chilled" will get the stodgiest of classical music nerds dancing and toe-tapping, remembering why we old fogies loved instrumental rock music `way back when groups like The Ventures and Booker T & The MG's showed us how much joy wordless music can hold and how it can stimulate the imagination. Listen up, folks! Fiona Joy Hawkins has moved into a new direction, and it really rocks. I love this album, and have had it playing with the volume cranked up for several days now. This is one album that packs in great music with imaginative(sometimes funny!) titles that are all on the chilly side. I hope Fiona's kids are eating some well-deserved crow and are seeing their mother in a whole new light!



Fiona Joy Hawkins wrote all of the music, plays piano and keyboards, and sings on the last two tracks. Dieter Kleemann brings his soulful rock guitar to four tracks, and some tracks feature bass guitar, didgeridoo, tarogato, and other acoustic instruments. Mostly, it's Fiona doing her own "cool" thing!



"Iced Rain" opens the album with a driving beat, lots of keyboard effects, and a simple piano melody that pours on the energy. Hmmm - this doesn't sound new agey at all! I like it! "Cloud Chill" begins with didgeridoo and then guitar and piano, with another infectious, driving rhythm. "Frosted View" chills it down a few degrees with a beautiful (but still very rhythmic), passionate piece that is melancholy and full of longing. "Antarctic Wings" and "Snow Bird" are the same song, but the latter has lyrics and the first is an instrumental - both are gorgeous. "Love In the Refrigerator" has to be a classic title, but the piece itself isn't silly or even light - slow and very effective. I like all of the pieces on this album, but "Winter Cold" is one of my favorites. Again very rhythmic and energetic, this piece really moves. The wordless vocals in the background add to the passionate piano/keyboard and give it the feeling of cool open space. "Frozen Rose" is an icy slow dance that contains the sound of howling wind in spots. "White View" is an alternative arrangement of "Frosted View" with more piano and a mild "eastern" flavor - both arrangements are wonderful in their emotional depth and passionate expressiveness. "Crystallized Love" features Fiona's sensuous vocals that sing of "freedom, love, touch, heat, ice..." and the sultry request to "crystallize me." Chills!



Already in the running for some major music awards for 2007, "Ice" should bring Fiona Joy Hawkins a whole new audience to her music. Cool to the extreme, check it out! Very highly recommended!"

This ICE is HOT!

Bill Binkelman | Minneapolis, MN USA | 03/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There's nothing like getting the new year off to an energizing start, something which pianist/keyboardist Fiona Joy Hawkins does on Ice: Piano Slightly Chilled, an album that sets the bar mighty high for 2008 chill-out recordings. I was caught completely unawares by this dramatic about-face from her previous release, Angel Above My Piano, which was more of a "traditional" new age piano/electronic keyboard recording. Ice... literally bursts out of the gate running flat-out and never looks back, ushering in Hawkins as an immediate contemporary of artists like Ryan Farish (whose music this resembles at times) and Amethystium. Thanks to the complementary talents of guitarist Dieter Kleeman, didgeridoo player Michael Jackson, and Dave Hopper's bass, Ice... is a full-on chill-out assault, at times amping it up and letting the sparks fly with stinging guitar leads and passionate didge playing.



As on Angel...Bruce Wheatley lends his estimable hand at engineering and mixing and the sound here is excellent. Hawkins reveals a whole new side of her musical talent by handling not just the piano but also the synthesizers, as well as composing all ten tracks. She even contributes breathy (and sensual) vocals on "Snow Bird" (her voice reminds me of a cross between Enya and Julianna) and the haunting sexy downtempo "Crystallized Love" (my favorite song on the CD).



"Iced Rain" opens the album with pulsing Berlin-esque whirly-gigging synths, frenetic sampled hand drums, buzzing didgeridoo, and Hawkins' passionate piano runs. Kleeman's blistering guitar lines light up the skies even as Hawkins dials up the fire and passion on the ivories over Jackson's didge tonalities. "Cloud Chill" turns the beats down to midtempo but the guitar moves into the foreground, pealing off both stinging licks and layers of power chords over a bed of didge and pounding snare and bass beats, all anchored by Hawkins melancholic piano refrains. "Frosted View" speeds the beat tempo back to fast amidst more didgeridoo and energizing piano. Slow and sensual is how "Love in the Refrigerator" plays it, smooth and sexy and satiny with lush keyboards, breathy synth chorals and plaintive piano set against snare and high hat rhythms, while "Frozen Rose" features thumping bass beats, wind effects, and sultry sax in a slow sexy number when compared to the relative higher energy of some of the other songs here.



Ice: Piano Slightly Chilled reveals a whole new side of this talented pianist and keyboard player. Fiona Joy Hawkins is poised to make the leap into stardom or I'm no judge of an artist's ability. To top it all off, she has the drop dead looks to make her the first sex symbol in a genre which sure could use a glamour injection. Hawkins may be just what we need to finally blow the lid off in contemporary instrumental music. As for Ice..., it's already in the running for chill-out album of the year as far as I'm concerned. Very highly recommended!"

WOW!

P. Shreve | Illinois, USA | 01/31/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After thoroughly enjoying Fiona Hawkins' first two CD's, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about her venturing into new territory with this album. Most artists don't have the guts to try something risky and different--especially after only two albums--but she pulled it off! Very cool album! Edgy...but still has enough of her classical flow to hook her established fan base. And as usual, terrific production and good graphics. Can't wait to hear what she does next!"