Pianist and composer, Andy Milne is thrilled to present Time Will Tell, a new album recorded with his trio Unison dropping April 26th, 2024, on Sunnyside Records. As with its predecessor, Time Will Tell is Milne’s artistic response to life-changing circumstances. Whereas The ReMission was inspired by his cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, Time Will Tell chronicles his lifelong efforts to uncover his birth family history. Adopted as an infant, his efforts to connect with his birth family proved fruitless – until 2018, when the gift of an Ancestry.com DNA test from his wife, singer La Tanya Hall, changed everything.

A DNA match led him to his first cousin, Marc, with whom he discovered he shared a mutual friend. Ironically, just as world events collided with the COVID-19 lockdowns, the profound mysteries of his biological family began to rapidly reveal themselves.

“In 2022, my voyage eventually received an unimaginable upgrade when I finally met my birth mother,” he recounts. “This recording reflects part of my expedition navigating the mixed emotions associated with this identity paradox. How we move through life, and the lives we will touch, is unknown to us, despite our best efforts to chart a path.”

While he says the new album shouldn’t be taken as a pound-for-pound musical account of these experiences, the journey inspired and informed his process.

“I realized my compositions were a subconscious reflection of my experience,” says Milne, who is also an assistant professor of music at the University of Michigan. “I met my birth mother days before I composed a lot of this music, and quickly recognized that this would be a significant throughline in those pieces. I essentially allowed it to flow and envelop my process.”

1. Purity of Heart (6:11)
2. Lost and Found (4:28)
3. Papounet (5:22)
4. Beyond the Porcelain Door (6:44)
5. Solotude (1:40)
6. Kumoi Joshi (8:09)
7. No Matter What(4:53)
8. Broken Landscape (5:20)
9. Lost and Found Reprise (8:27)
10. Apart (6:42)

Returning to his first love, exploring the intimacy of the piano trio, Andy’s new album opens on the formative Purity of Heart and the intricately balanced Lost and Found and then we get the dutifully plaintive Papounet, the elegantly sculpted Beyond the Porcelain Door, and then comes the diligent Solotude.

Along next is the free flowing, atmospheric Kumoi Joshi and the upbeat and engrossing No Matter What and they are in turn backed by the veritably crystalline Broken Landscape, the album rounding out on the stoically opulent Lost and Found Reprise, closing on the thoughtful Apart.

Musicians:
Andy Milne - piano
John Hébert - bass
Clarence Penn - drums
Ingrid Laubrock - tenor saxophone (1, 4, 6, 9)
Yoko Reikano Kimura - koto (2. 4, 6, 9)

Official Amazon Purchase Link

www.andymilne.com