Each Measure Feature: Hanan Townshend

FEATURE

“If music played when loss first entered the world, what might it have sounded like?”

That was the question on Hanan Townshend’s mind when he composed What We Lost, his upcoming piano-led album structured around themes of grief and memory. Having listened to “What We Lost II,” the first single off the album, I’m impressed at how close he’s come to toward answering that impossible question.

Hanan Townshend comes from a unique background. Based in Austin, Texas, the New Zealand native first gained recognition through his partnership with filmmaker, Terrence Malick, a collaboration that gave him the opportunity to contribute piano arrangements and scoring for multiple projects in the film industry. This experience might be partially responsible for the cinematic, evocative quality of tracks like “What We Lost II,” which gives the impression of the soundtrack to a particularly moving film.

Townshend’s deft piano work takes center stage in “What We Lost II,” accompanied by a slow, weeping string ensemble. The piece unfolds like a movie scene, panning across a mournful soundscape note by note and teasing every somber shade of gray out of its repeating theme.

With it’s melancholy minor key and legato pace, “What We Lost II” is a piece that captures grief in its essence, but importantly, it’s also a piece that remembers that where there is loss, there once was love. Townshend captures the elusive intersection between love and loss with delicate, intimate textures and rising notes of hope that recur throughout the piece. There’s a sweetness beneath the sorrow, a light at the end of the tunnel that represents healing.

It’s the sense of empathy that makes “What We Lost II” such an inspired and moving release. It’s a piece that stands with you through your grief, offering comfort that’s as uplifting as it is painful. It’s a guiding light through the untamed landscape of grief.

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