AMBIENT CHAMBER MUSIC (2022)
At its core, Keller’s music has always explored the mysteries of life and death, and our place in this world. There is a unique spirituality to his music, and while not being overtly religious, it is deeply devotional.
On that, Keller says, “Music is the primary vehicle, but ultimately, it’s about the spiritual and social connection that people feel - that sense of a shared experience.”
Between 1978 and 1982, producer Brian Eno released his 4-part treatise on ambient music. These four albums (Ambient 1-4) codified this style and its methods: loops, evolving repetition, sonic manipulation, and atmosphere. It was out of this fertile field that the young composer Kevin Keller first emerged, asking the question, “what would happen if you applied these methods to classical chamber music?”
The answer initially came from his 1996 album “Intermezzo”, about which radio host John Diliberto says that “while Keller may not have been the first artist to combine classical motifs with electronic atmospheres, he was the first one with whom it felt like a movement was taking place.” That movement would come to be known as “ambient chamber music”, and in the years since then, Keller has sold nearly 100,000 albums, while the style has continued to evolve and grow, being embraced by such artists as Nils Frahm, Peter Broderick, and Jóhann Jóhannsson, among others.