Joep Beving - Henosis (Deluxe) (2020) [Hi-Res]

“This is my journey, and my search for understanding,” says Beving, the acclaimed composer/pianist who rose to eminence in 2015 thanks to millions of streams of the contemplative, atmospheric Solipsism. By now he is one of the most streamed pianists in the world.

“I believe that the answers are much more on the inside,” he explains. “So this journey, in a way, is also an internal one. My hope is to give people a space to be in for a couple of minutes or hours where they feel things just seem to be right, like a recognition that they’re understood or that they can just be.”

On HENOSIS the Dutch composer continues his minimalist and at times romantic style of writing, but this time explores new territories. It sets off where his sophomore album Prehension left us, the warm intimate sound of the Schimmel piano Beving inherited from his grandmother. With the help of producer Gijs van Klooster and through collaborations with Cappella Amsterdam, Echo Collective and Maarten Vos, Joep Beving opens up new musical worlds using orchestral and electronic sounds alongside the familiar piano.

Joep Beving’s music speaks for itself. Henosis, the grand and sprawling closing chapter in a trilogy of albums, was a journey into the vastness of the cosmos and his most dramatic collection of songs to date. Now three new visual elements – a short film and two music videos – seek to help deepen our understanding of the ideas informing the record, adding further layers to Beving’s work and complimenting the richness of the sonic world he’s created.

‘Anamnesis’ is the concept of recollection, especially that of a supposed previous existence, and provides the central inspiration for filmmaker Michaël I. Sewandono’s stunning new short film, Henosis – Anamnesis. A longtime friend of Beving, Dutchman Sewandono is an acclaimed independent film director and artist in his own right, who has written and directed numerous short films and music videos, and has exhibited his art at prestigious institutions and film festivals all over the world.

Of this particular project, Sewandono says: “I wanted to create something that connects with the idea of Joep Beving’s new album: unity as the goal of all things and the idea of a presence of something larger, that we are all part of a constant movement where nothing endures.” The film follows the fractured narrative of multiple characters, unaware they are mimicking each other across time and space yet sharing an inner voice, and the innate knowledge that people are said to possess.

Shot in three parts of the world, the cinematography is beautiful and captivating in equal measure. The camera lingers poignantly: on a table laden with sand, a stoic old man sculpting the grains with his bare hands; on a woman’s fingers as she draws them gently through water in a dish. “I’ve always been a fan of Sewandono’s aesthetics,” says Beving, “and I’m really happy with the imagery and the whole atmosphere of the film. In a way it’s very simple, but it’s also very layered; you can look at in different ways, or just give into what you are seeing.”

That second option is the best way to experience the two music videos created by artist Floris Schönfeld. Images used in the videos are part of his NATURA* project that was shot at the legendary visual effects facility Trumbull Studios. Beving is at pains to stress that Henosis is as much an internal journey – “I believe that the answers are much more on the inside” – as one to the great, black void that is the edge of the universe, and the videos reflect that; ‘Henosis’ is the outward journey, ‘Klangfall’ the inward. The former, all mournful strings and woozy synths, represents “super deep space”; colourful, celestial flares blaze out from an eclipse, gradually replaced with an inky blackness as the song reaches its denouement.

For the otherworldly ‘Klangfall’, coloured oil was filmed through a microscope, the beads churning and roiling, creating epic, ever-changing patterns. At times, it’s like watching cells interact, the metaphor – viewing the very building blocks of life – crystal clear. There’s a real power to the imagery, one that chimes perfectly with the majesty of Henosis itself. “There’s a solitude there, but also this grandness; it can be experienced as very daunting or far away from you, but you understand that it’s within you too. It’s all part of the self.”

Bringing images and music together creates worlds for the mind to travel through and wonder about, leaving a lasting effect on those willing to explore. In Beving’s life, as in his music, he seeks to establish deeper connections between those he terms “wandering souls”; these videos, and particularly Henosis – Anamnesis, help achieve precisely this, adding vitality and complexity to an already stellar body of work.

Joep Beving, piano