Karen Salicath Jamali didn’t set out to become a composer. Her music arrived unannounced – after a near-death experience in 2012 left her changed, she began to play piano despite having no formal training. Since then, she’s recorded thousands of pieces, performed at Carnegie Hall, and built a unique body of work that sits somewhere between classical composition and meditative reflection. “Angel Haniel’s Clearing” is her latest piece, and it follows the same path.
There’s no arc or climax: It’s slow, minimal, and intentionally still. The piano drifts through space, each note allowed to hang before the next arrives. You don’t get the feeling it was composed in the traditional sense. It sounds more like something found than written – like it was waiting somewhere quiet and she simply pressed record.
It’s hard to pin this music to a genre. It’s not classical in a traditional sense, and it doesn’t lean into ambient production either. But it would sit easily inside a quiet film scene – something internal, reflective, a long shot of someone driving at night or staring out to sea.
“Angel Haniel’s Clearing” is like a breath held and released. Nothing forced, nothing polished for effect. Just a peaceful stretch of sound, made to be sat with.
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