While American pianist and composer Dustin O’Halloran comes from an indie rock background with his band Devics, he has also released three solo albums to date on the piano – including the live recording Vorleben (2010) – contributed to several film soundtracks and collaborates on an ongoing basis with the post-classical ambient collective A Winged Victory for the Sullen. The 2011 recording Lumiere probably stands at the confluence of these various phases in the musician’s career. On several tracks, Dustin O’Halloran added subtle touches of electronica or delved into classical chamber music with the assistance of the New-York based Acme string ensemble.
The gorgeous “We move lightly” belongs to the cinematic side of Dustin O’Halloran’s music as the track was composed for and features on Like Crazy. The following clip was captured live with a string quartet at the STUK Arts Centre, Leuven (Belgium) in December 2012 last.
It is also interesting to note that the musician has synaesthesia and tackles his composition work the same way a painter would:
O’Halloran writes of this record as a combined product of these environments and of the synesthetic reaction of translating them into music – especially in terms of the new colours made available to him by writing for the larger ensembles. […] O’Halloran compares this approach to visual art, especially in maintaining the synaesthesia theme: “somehow in composing I had always viewed the work similar to how a painter would approach it, adding colors, texture, adding space, painting over the whole thing and maybe leaving just a corner.” Fat Cat Records – Lumiere press release
