Hanan Townshend brings a powerful new chapter to the table with What We Lost II

Hanan Townshend is a master of musical precision and patience, and he brings this skill to bear once again with a new composition that opens the door to his upcoming album What We Lost, which is heavily piano-based. While he is known for cinematic pieces that are also deeply personal and evocative, he has managed to create a new composition that feels like a cinematic experience and is also deeply personal.

As a first single from this upcoming album, What We Lost II is a product of a question that has guided the entire album: if music had been present at the very first experience of loss, what would it have looked like? It is this question that has guided this composition and made it feel so deeply personal and cinematic.

Townshend himself has referred to this work as an effort to engage with grief without fully understanding it. It is not necessarily a story-driven work but rather exists in a more instinctive space where emotion is more prevalent than any inherent meaning. This is somewhat in contrast with the composer’s other work in the realm of scoring films, where the music is often part of the overall story. In this case, however, What We Lost II is a standalone work influenced by reflection and vulnerability.

The process of recording the work is also an integral part of the overall character of the work itself. As it is created in the comfort of the composer’s own home on an upright piano, the work is full of imperfections and external influences. Sounds from the environment and the outside world, such as the sounds of birds and insects coming from the garden outside the window, are not edited out but rather incorporated into the overall work. This is somewhat in keeping with the idea that grief and memory are never fully contained but are always influenced by the world around us.

Hanan Townshend is an award-winning composer who has worked with the likes of Terrence Malick and has had a long history of working on films. While continuing in the realm of modern classical and ambient sounds, Hanan Townshend’s latest work in the form of What We Lost II is a sensitive introduction to the overall work that is bound to resonate with listeners.