Immerse yourself in a beautifully rich and soothing world of celestial harps, angelic choirs, magical layers of orchestral and synthesized sounds, twelve 5-minute tracks flowing seamlessly together, a world of heavenly, elysian peace.
Elysian Peace is an uninterrupted hour of music offering a universally appealing rest in today's hectic world. The twelve 5-minute tracks flow seamlessly from one to the next, providing a gentle and unobtrusive way to time such activities as relaxation, prayer, study, walking and so on.
Beneath its apparent simplicity is a carefully structured and crafted composition. The work is skillfully produced with computers and synthesizers, using a variety of acoustic, orchestral and synthesized sounds. A main melody and other musical ideas recur throughout the piece, reappearing with different instruments, textures, tempos and keys, providing both familiarity and variation.
"My main intention in creating this album was to make it as beautiful, warm and rich as possible. I made a conscientious effort to permeate the music with subtle variation so that while it makes excellent background music, it also retains interest through repeated attentive listening."
This music does more than merely encourage your to relax - it picks you up with strong but gentle arms and carries you to another place, a world of heavenly, elysian peace.
"Australian musician/composer Bill Canty is out to get you. His musical experience runs the gamut from orchestras to Rock N Roll bands. A classical pianist by training, Canty has a profound talent for musical subtlety and grace. On Elysian Peace, Canty practices both in an ambient environment. Twelve five minute compositions inspire relaxation and peace while encouraging active listening through the use of stepped variation and subtle gradation of themes."
"Bill Canty's Elysian Peace is among the most difficult types of albums to review. There is no specific song structure; there aren't even any songs, per se. Elysian Peace is 60 minutes of gentle musical breezes that blow gently across a nearly still body of water. The breeze here doesn't so much touch the water as kiss it gently from time to time as it rolls and wheels across the horizon. Canty uses electronic instrumentation and ambient settings to create movement that isn't so much inertial as spatial. Twelve five-minute tracks are not so much differentiated from one another as they are extensions of one to another."
"Canty uses undulations of sound, brief glances of melody, random notes and a dawdling sense of development to craft the ultimate relaxation/meditation disc. I'm not talking the cheap and terminal recordings you find in new age boutiques or mall havens like Brookstone, but a vibrant, ambient new age recording that has life and movement within it. Elysian Peace holds the listener's interest because within the still calm of the music is another world that beckons the listener: A world full of energy and currents you can't see but which pull at you all the same."
"Canty mixes up the "instruments" and sounds throughout the sixty minute recording to display a gradual change in effects over time. You might hear the electronic equivalent of glockenspiel, guitar, synth, water bells, orchestras and most anything else you can imagine. All of these sounds and effects are woven into the textures of Elysian Peace so as to become practically indistinct. Canty seems to have a real talent for creating these musical tableaus in four dimensions. Nothing is ever flat or concrete."
"Bill Canty is an unusually talented composer in the realm of electronic music. Elysian Peace is perfect for relaxation or meditation, but also provides ample musical nutrition for the active listener. Like the deep and powerful currents that often lay far below the still surface of water, Elysian Peace moves with its own inner power and grace. There is too much energy here and too much raw potential for change to not listen closely. Bravo."
"[T]he music has been genuinely sweated over, this thing is a perfectionists dream. As usual I am fascinated by the textures he has chosen and his piano playing in Part 12 is just gorgeous. Some of it is just so subtle and delicate that you wonder how on earth he did it."
"I think that Bill's work transcends the genre, I have listened to way too many "Celtic New Age" albums of late and Elysian Peace exhibits none of the "cookie cutter" cliches that you will find over and over again."
"Sometimes you come across a CD that really stands out from the crowd, a case in point being Elysian Peace by Bill Canty. It's a little unusual, being designed for the relaxation market, but is far above the normal standard of available relaxation music."
"The standard of the compositions alone is wonderful, and the production quality is easily as good as that found in expensive studio albums. All in all, the pieces blend seamlessly together and work superbly - either for relaxation, or for just great listening pleasure."
"I have heard some of Bill Canty's works before and this album once again showcases his unique arranging and compositional talents."
Exactly how to do this depends on which browser and type of computer you're using. You'll need to right-click (or possibly control-click or click-and-hold) in order to be able to choose "Save Link Target As...", "Save Linked File to the Desktop" or similar. Once the file is downloaded, play it on any mp3 player such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. Each file is 1.8MB in size, except for the last one which is 5.5MB.
You can also click on these links to play the demos in your browser's default player. If you play them in a new window or a new tab you can keep reading this page (or any other page) at the same time.
Clicking on either of the "Download" buttons (the one on the left or the one in the music player) will open a new window in which you can download the album for US$9.99 or individual tracks for US$0.99. Several different high quality formats are available, including lossless.
Or click on the "Buy CD" button to the left to buy the CD for AU$24 or less. These prices currently include postage to anywhere in the world.
PayPal - one of the world's best, safest, simplest and most popular online payment systems - handles the online payments for downloads and CDs. No, you don't need a PayPal account. Apple's iTunes Music Store has its own payment methods.
Please send an Australian cheque or money order to: Bill Canty, P.O. Box 234, Corio, Vic., 3214, Australia
Please understand that cheques need to be cleared before your order can be sent.
The downloadable version of this album is currently reduced to US$4 as part of Steve Lawson's Indie MP3 Sale!
If you buy the full album you get 2 versions: the "separated" version, where each track is musically self-contained, and also the "continuous" version, where you can join all 12 tracks together to make one seamless hour of music just like on the CD.
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