Artist: Ron Korb and Donald Quan
Album Title: Seasons
Genre/Style: Instrumental
Release Year: 2006
I have conflicting views on instrumentals. On the one hand, they can be haunting and beautiful, like the entries in Ron Korb and Donald Quan’s Seasons. But on the other hand, like that same album, they tend not to grab my attention. I wonder if they affect me on some subconscious level, but instrumental albums always seem shorter than vocal ones, probably because I stop really paying attention.
This is a good album though. It could be described as new age, I suppose, but it’s peaceful and melancholy. It’s basically piano and gentle woodwinds (I assume Korb plays one and Quan plays the other). “We Three Kings” is especially good, and I like hearing “The Huron Carol” now and then. There’s a misty-eyedness to even the most cheerful songs on the album, but the music isn’t depressing. It’s the kind of album you play on Christmas Night, when your heart is a little heavy with the knowledge that the holiday is mere hours from being out of your life for another year.
Rating: 
And that’s that.
