Want to lend a cozy touch to your home this holiday season, but don’t have a fireplace? You could go with the classic backup plan of the chimney-impaired and pop a (virtual) log in the DVD player. For something a little more dynamic, though, why not try the video for Axel Boman’s “Fantastic Piano”? Its twinkling, bokeh-kissed interplay of water and colored lights will look great in your living room, looped ad infinitum up on the flatscreen while you and your guests snack on canapés or relax with a steaming cup of mulled wine.
Better yet, Boman’s lilting piano miniature really does sound like the winter soundtrack of your dreams — a little bit Erik Satie, a little bit Vince Guaraldi, and as downy as a feather duvet. It’s quite a change of pace for the musician that brought us the lascivious, bleary-eyed house anthem “Purple Drank,” but if we’ve learned anything from the tattooed club-music prankster, it’s to expect the unexpected from him.
“Fantastic Piano” comes from Boman’s debut album, Family Vacation (Studio Barnhus, out now), whose low-key blend of quirky sound design, dubby psychedelia, and quietly ecstatic grooves finds common ground with DJ Koze’s Amygdala, from earlier this year. It’s far too rich to classify as mere aural wallpaper, but it also functions marvelously well in the background, with the volume low. Clearly, those Swedes know a thing or two about decorating a living room.
