Steve Nieve

As anyone who has spent much time listening to Elvis Costello's body of work knows, Steve Nieve is a superb keyboard player who can work comfortably in a wide variety of musical contexts. According to Nieve, his 2004 solo disc, Windows, was in part inspired by his travels as a musician -- everywhere he goes, he snaps a picture out of the window of wherever he happens to be staying, and records a few minutes of ambient sound from the street below. Several of Nieve's photos adorn the package of Windows, and clips from his sound collection form sonic bridges between the tracks, which exist in a stylistic middle ground between new age, jazz, and pop. Most of these pieces are dominated by solo piano with washes of other keyboards laid over them and occasional electronic interjections popping up along the way (a clarinet even appears on "Window #3 [Declan's Window]" by way of variety). Windows sounds like the sort of album you'd expect from a gifted accompanist working out his own ideas; the craft is just fine, even if the songs aren't much to write home about. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide