Luke Howard – Galileo EP

“These seven pieces are solo piano improvisations, recorded in a single session at home — no edits, no overdubs, no retakes. Improvisation has always been part of my piano language, but this record marks a quiet return to the jazz vocabulary I immersed myself in as an undergraduate before stepping away from it to focus more deliberately on writing “classical” music (whatever we call it). I think I once tried to distance myself from that influence — yet it’s clearly still there. And perhaps that thread gives this music its own character amid the sea of arpeggiated piano records.

I hadn’t originally planned to release these recordings — they were made some time ago — but after playing them to my friend and producer François Tétaz, he encouraged me to share them. Berlin-based engineer Martyn Heyne mixed and mastered the record beautifully, and François, Lachlan Carrick and I added subtle ambient layers that can be heard in the Spatial Audio (Atmos) version.

The music of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou was a significant inspiration while making this record. The pieces feel less like separate works and more like movements within a single arc — a theme explored from different angles.

The EP is dedicated to my son, Leo. The title Galileo nods both to him and to Galileo Galilei — to that sense of wonder at the sky, and the same wonder I see in Leo as he encounters the world each day.”