Kelly’s last record, Moves in the Field, explored the precision of the Yamaha Disklavier, piano as machine, humanly creative yet beyond the two-handed limits of its mechanics. On Don’t Trust Mirrors, she pushes further into exploring the deceptively simple piano. Synthesisers, noise, and altered mechanics join the piano, not as decoration but as expansion. The same curiosity is redirected into light, circuitry, and resonance.

My curiosity is piqued as a few bright arpeggios shimmer out of my speakers. Electronic, almost synthetic, yet I can sense the weight of hammers and strings somewhere beneath them. Within a minute I’m locked in, the familiar and the alien flickering together. My brain and body acknowledge a simpatico synchronisation. I’m ready for the journey.

With Prism Drift, the piano refracts into a multitude of tones and textures, one instrument simultaneously played in a thousand rooms. The sound is warm, rhythmically alive, its harmonies echoing like a heartbeat translating emotion. That emotional charge is clear: this is not discordant experimentation but music built on trust. I realise I’m going to be surprised and awestruck continually over the span of this record.

In Lunar Wave, the music exhales. You’re in the middle of delight. Layers of stretched harmonics and granular textures drift like light through water. Not every hand has been played, but you can hear the promise of them, waiting. The piece proves again how infinite a single instrument can be when you stop treating it as a fixed known.

Then Reappearing arrives with warmth and haze, the sound folding around itself. The piano strings shimmer like a zither while synth arpeggios ripple through downsampled digital crunch. I stop worrying about where this music will land. I’m already there. The only question left is how much more there is to uncover.

A mirror only tells you the surface detail. Kelly Moran shows what happens when you look beyond it. Her explorations feel endless, each piece a new refraction of the same source. Don’t Trust Mirrors reminds me that reflections end at the surface, but Moran’s imagination keeps unfolding, limitless in curiosity.

Don't Trust Mirrors by Kelly Moran