Hello Death by Malcolm Pardon

In a career that began in the 90s, veering from playing in bands to composing music for film and television to bombing the floor with ​Peder Mannerfelt (as Roll the Dice), Malcolm Pardon extends his oeuvre further with a debut solo album. Hello Death is eight plaintive piano productions that celebrate the fragility and darkness of life and the inevitability of death. You get to a certain age where you know you have less time left than time you have spent on Earth he says, and with that realisation, he acknowledges his downhill pose with a tasteful tip of the hat to the reaper.

The concept (if that's even his aim) of symbolising a near death experience through music, after falling into water as a child and realising that death is something to be embraced, is a half sibling to Nitrogen Narcosis by Scuba Death, where both LPs use structures, contrasting textures and tension to depict an ultra vivid scene; in Pardon's case, subtlety is key. A delicate, beautiful statement.