The video below turned up in my Hubzilla feed last week. It was titled “Hania Rani – Live from Studio S2” and it was tagged #piano and #electronicmusic. There was no other description. The tags I understood but the names of the artist and the studio meant nothing to me, so clicking on the link was prompted only by the itch of curiosity. It was like entering a dark room and flicking the light switch not knowing what I would find there. Perhaps it would be a bare room with plain magnolia walls. Perhaps it would be a horror chamber full of skeletons and the tools of torture. Or perhaps it would be something altogether more appealing.

The first glimpse was intriguing. A young woman sat surrounded by three piano keyboards in a vast room with mics and music stands in the background. She started to play the upright piano, hammering a single note with one hand, dampening the strings with the other. Gradually more notes were added and a simple tune emerged. After a while the pianist switched to the grand piano without skipping a beat or interrupting the melody. Crotchety Man was mesmerised.

25 minutes later this simple comment was added to the Hubzilla post: “Spellbinding! ❤️❤️❤️”

Hania Rani is a Polish pianist, singer and composer. Her music explores the piano keyboard in acoustic and electronic form much like Poppy Ackroyd. She has released one album in collaboration with Dobrawa Czocher, a Polish cellist, and two solo albums. All are well worth listening to if you like gentle music that bubbles and sparkles like a mountain stream.