Nagra Piano, the piano based instrumental record from David Baron is a striking and emotive piece of song-writing through mood and melody. The avid producer and musician from Woodstock spent a great deal of time during the pandemic almost entirely immersed in the technological process of crafting songs through using various tools and software designed for collaboration in the digital age. That prolonged exposure to a digital world that stemmed on cursors, endless screen time, and browsing mindlessly soon had Baron feeling detached.
“I would sit down at my Steinway B at night. The stars would come out. I would disengage from the world of
technology and enter the purely musical fantasy world. It felt like a return to how I learned to love music
originally when my parents first brought home a piano. The excitement of discovery.”
And so Nagra Piano was born. Free from adornment, free from layers, free from an over emphasis on multitudes of production angles, it’s an album that doesn’t rely on infusions of intricacy. It’s a pure piece of piano driven song-writing, letting that singular instrument, and that alone, take you on an emotive journey that spans fifteen tracks but only around half an hour in totality. It’s plaintive in tone, and pure in delivery.
Baron himself is a storied and accomplished musician. Having worked with a plethora of different artists including The Lumineers, Shania Twain, Shawn Mendes, and more, he’s got barrels of experience under him. With plenty of work in film scoring, shows, and albums, his talent is completely streamlined and focused on this pure and deeply enjoyable piece of piano driven song-writing.