Daniel Luke: Shadow Dance – Remarkably self-possessed solo debut tips cap to Chopin, Satie and Corea

You may not be aware, but Daniel Luke has a family pedigree as long as the Channel Tunnel: he and one of his brothers, James Smith, are former members of the indie rock band Gypsies on the Autobahn, while another brother, Kevin Smith, is much better known as Kojaque.

Luke, however, is on a different magical mystery tour from his siblings. While James presents bruised, intimate songs, and Kojaque delivers sucker punches and beats, Luke calms things down significantly with an album of instrumental piano pieces that tip a cap to Chopin, Debussy, Erik Satie, Chick Corea (especially Corea’s solo piano albums) and Bill Evans.

As a solo debut work from a classically trained musician who banged the drums loudly for Gypsies on the Autobahn, and who embarked on a course of jazz lessons just a few years ago, Shadow Dance is remarkably self-possessed: nothing here sounds like the result of an overwrought relationship with music. Rather, via ear-catching and instinctual tracks (one of which, Weight, features lithe strings by Gareth Redmond Quinn), Luke effortlessly evokes varying levels of emotional liability.

[ ‘When we decided we wanted to do music seriously there was no question of getting a real job’ ]

In that sense the music is (or, at least to this listener, seems to be) completely Daniel Luke. You don’t often get that from solely instrumental music, but pieces such as Bloom, Chroma, The Arrival (written for his goddaughter) and Silk are aural equivalents of blue skies dotted with clouds, some snow white, some grey.