Yanni - Truth of Touch

I recently had the opportunity to check out the latest album from Yanni. The album is called Truth of Touch. It features a couple of songs with lyrics, but mostly is the instrumental only pieces for which Yanni is best known. This is Yanni's first instrumental release of original compositions in over eight years and is a return to the genre Yanni helped create and advance.

What Yanni says about the new album:

“I work the rhythms in this album,” explains Yanni about the new material. “There is a beautiful complexity in these rhythms, a new sound design. I think the melodic content is very strong and very memorable. I was having fun with this album and that’s going to become apparent.”

I have listened to the album a few times. There are a number of the instrumental songs that I really enjoy, like Truth of Touch and Seasons, but I think my favorite songs are the ones with lyrics. I hate to admit it, but I actually listened a couple of times before I realized that there were some English lyrics in O Luce Che Brilla Nell’Oscurita. The song is operatic in style and features Nathan Pacheco, who was also part of the Yanni Voices production a couple of years ago. The song definitely is mostly in Italian, but there is English in there too. There is something about the operatic performance and fullness of his voice that transcends language and makes me really like the song, even though I can't understand what is being sung. When I listen to that song, it makes me want to pull out my Michael Crawford Performs Andrew Lloyd Weber CD. (My husband uploaded most of our music to iTunes so that we could listen to it and include on playlists for our iPod, but interestingly that CD is missing from the collection - or I would be listening now).

I definitely enjoy the style of his music, but must say that without vocals I find that his music lends itself more to being played at home, or when I am need of some music without noise in the car. I like to sing along in my car and sometimes struggle with listening to music I can't (try) to sing along with.

You can learn more about Yanni and the Truth of Touch Album on the Yanni website. If you are interested, Yanni is in the midst of a world tour and has many stops scheduled in the United States over the next couple of months.

You can hear samples of the tracks here.

No compensation was received for this post. I received a digital copy of Truth of Touch through One2One for the purposes of providing a review of the album.