Beautiful new album by Goldmund.  If you're not familiar with his work, keith kenniff is also the man behind Helios which is similar minimal music but more modern/contemporary with simple drum beats in certain tracks, all sampled from organic sounds supposedly.  The music in both Goldmund and Helios is atmospheric, like a soundtrack to an imaginary movie and paints a picture that finds a really nicely balanced mood- it is uplifting without being cheezy, something that I think is pretty rare, and it also retains quite a bit of melancholy and sadness.  You wouldn't call it happy music by any means, but it certainly carries a lot of hope and positivity to it.  Goldmund is more stripped down than Helios.  Helios incorporates drum sounds, keyboards and a variety of other instruments and sounds while most goldmund albums are almost nothing but piano and acoustic guitar and he mics the piano so that you can hear the hammers moving in the background which is quite stunning on good detailed phones like orthos or the HD800.  His album Corduroy Road is worth it just for that alone, as it is mostly piano and highlights the effect. 



This new album All Will Prosper is all traditional American folk songs which have been re-arranged, stripped, and slowed down.  Mostly just piano and acoustic guitar with lots of silent space between notes.  My impression is that the album is at least in some small way about the feeling of great hope that was the American Western frontier.  The dream of starting a new life, of riches and prosperity, freedom, escape, renewal.  And the sadness and suffering that often came with the reality of those dreams.  But it's also just pretty, relaxing, well recorded music.  Highly recommended if you have an inkling for folk music, ambient music, slow melodic music, or all 3!

You can listen to the whole album on youtube here with each track linked to the next:

Whole album on youtube linked in playlist

Or a couple individual tracks on youtube here:

Shenandoah

All Quiet on the Potamic