NEW RELEASE – THE NEW YORK SECOND –

White dresses, elevated trains and staring children stir the imagination of the Dutch-International The New York Second.

Similar to good music, good photography can take you on an adventurous trip of the imagination. Harald Walkate combines both on Room For Other People, inspired by the photography of Vivian Maier. A thoroughly enjoyable story by the Amsterdam pianist, who specializes in culturally-motivated records of completely self-written repertory, having tackled writer Aldous Huxley (Music At Night) among others – notes-heavy and luxuriously illustrated CD packages.

The equilibrium of mind of heart is Walkate’s terrain, an approach as balanced as his thoughtful style that borrows from pop, classical and minimal music. The New York Second’s partners-in-epic-slash-dreamy-crime feel like fish in the water of Walkate’s supple harmonies, a few of them big fish, pike-perches, breams, monk-fishes, that solo beautifully, in and out of sweet-sour dissonance, velvet resonance, notably trumpeter/flugelhornist Teus Nobel, flutist Mark Alban Lotz, tenor saxophonist Tom Beek and vibraphonist Rob Waring.

Small suite-like sections, especially the lively 983 Third Avenue and intriguingly orchestrated The Class Photograph, alternate with the bounciness of The Collectors Corner and mystery/melancholy of The White Dress. The title is taken from Vivian Maier’s sobering statement that ‘Nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people.’ The New York Second understands that sentiment all too well.

Find Harald’s website and Room For Other People here: https://haraldwalkate.com/

The New York Second present Room For Other People at Phil in Haarlem, The Netherlands on February 1.

See my interview from 2023 with Harald here: http://flophousemagazine.com/2023/06/14/some-other-time/