Klara Lewis’ ‘Opening’ Is Built on Contrast, Not Resolution

The broader cultural moment has been moving through blue — in art, in music, in mood — and Klara Lewis’ Opening sits within that register, though its azure shifts under varying light rather than staying fixed. That instability of hue becomes a structural principle across the record.

The opening track “Ta Min Hand” establishes a baseline from which the rest of the album drifts. In “City,” solo piano plays against the sounds of traffic and conversation, pausing as if listening, before a wave of aggressive mechanical sound — rovers and gears — takes over the field. The piano returns, insistent. The question posed is not musical alone; it is about attention in a competitive sonic economy.

Two pieces, “Feel” and “Drip,” were composed for Mika Taanila’s film Failed Emptiness. “Feel” is the album’s most abrasive moment, standing in sharp contrast to the melodies that haunt the earlier selections. “Drip” nearly dances, held back only by its brevity. The longest track, “Tide,” runs 11:37 and connects to Christine Ödlund’s painting “Dissolving Strawberry,” a link between pigment and tone.

By “How Far?,” abstraction edges ahead of form, with Lewis’ own voice appearing late as one more instrument. The set closes with “Opening” itself — an inversion that leaves the title deliberately unresolved. A doorway, an act of surrender, or both.