When someone describes their musical inspiration with a level of variance as broad as Radiohead to Chick Corea, it’s bound to pique any music geek’s interest. And boy oh boy was my intrigue relieved when I first heard ‘Hearts Full of Grace’. Al Swainger’s Pointless Beauty feels like music for the soul in such a pure, perfect, and exquisite way. It feels and sounds like high art, but not in a way that’s pretentious or offbeat, just in the sheer immaculateness of its conception. Hearts Full of Grace is the 5th full length studio album, and spiritual follow up to 2017’s ‘After & Before’, from Bristol based Al Swainger’s Pointless Beauty and it succeeds in almost every minute.
Blending together a wonderful gel of ambient, latin, rock and pop influences with an easily improvised musical journey, the record serves as Swainger’s very personal interpretation and vision for what progressive music and jazz music could be. The instrumental arrangements throughout the record are the definitive highlight, never once falling into the rather monotonous mundanity of some lounge jazz records. It’s consistently exciting, ever throwing you a new bone to focus your attention to, almost perpetually having such tiny little aspects in the production that have you replaying little bits and pieces of each track to spot and uncover all the parts that make it whole.
His influences couldn’t be better described, ‘Hearts Full of Grace’ is a record and a half. Even within the album’s opening record ‘The Way Back’ alone, you’re treated to just so much diversity and excellence that you want to replay it instantly. Utter earworms from back to front.