British novelist Ian McEwan gave an interview not long ago where he says at length what he thinks young writers are missing out on these days. In a word: it’s solitude. His way of phrasing it was drawing up an example of someone waiting for their luggage to arrive after them at an airport. 

The person learns to wait—to “wander” as he puts it “through the garden of their thoughts.” Cellphones and the multitudinous arrays of disruption available now offer almost no other possibility but to diminish or eliminate even the idea of waiting and learning and struggling to kill time. 

Even if the battery on someone’s phone was low or had run out altogether, it’s easy to picture what could replace people watching, or the simple act of observation: blistering airport announcements, soon-to-be passengers running to make it to long and punishing customs lines; ads flashing on screens placed throughout the waiting areas; music, TV, or a call with a loved one or friend blaring from someone else’s phone nearby. 

It’s almost impossible to not be interrupted these days – it’s no secret at all.

It’s what makes Natalie Rose LeBrecht’s recent solo piano piece “Ghosts Cascading Through Static Space,” all the more startling: the solitude it presents; the ability to have “gotten there,” so to speak. 

According to the information available, it’s an improvised piece, played in one sitting, that takes inspiration from influences as wide and ranging as Ravel, Keith Jarrett, Sun Ra, and Alice Coltrane. 

An interesting experiment with it – being an improvised work – is to put in as a listener at least a complimentary effort— finding space and time to hear its twenty-plus minutes in full and see how difficult it is to do (or not) and if so what gets in the way.

In that time, it’s possible to hear bright spots but not without a significant embrace of the dark, and tensions that rely on silence just as much as they may sound. 

There are ups, there are downs – there are parts that wander, parts that bring everything back, and offshoots of trails that are explored and then let go of once what they’ve had to offer runs thrillingly out. 

It’s a restless but at times peaceful ride, capturing all the colors and paradoxical emotions between the two. 

And while it may take several tries, it’s worth listening to that many times alone to see how far someone has to go as a litmus test to get even that relatively small measure of time to themselves.