There are a lot of really good and even great pianists out there, but I don't think anyone has a touch on the piano keys quite like Chad Lawson's. I've seen Chad play live several times, and it's always an amazing experience. Where We Are - Unity Edition is a collection of twenty-three pieces, most of which are original piano solos, offering listeners nearly 1 1/2 hours of soothing and relaxing music - and who couldn't use some more of that? The album is an expanded version of Chad's 2024 release, also titled Where We Are (without the Unity Edition in the title).

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to review Chad's debut album, Set On a Hill, back in 2009 and have been hooked on his music ever since. Chad composes most of the music he records, blending classical and jazz elements with his own intuitive and deeply expressive style. In addition to his many recordings over the years, Chad has become widely-known for exploring the intersection between music and wellness with chart-topping contemporary classical releases and his iHeart Radio Award-nominated podcast Calm It Down, which explores mental health topics and meditation techniques soundtracked with his own music.

The first eleven tracks on Where We Are - Unity Edition are from the earlier Where We Are. They are all solo piano and placed in the same playing order as the first album. Next is the brand new "You're My Everything," a piece for piano with ambient synth sounds that give it a mysterious, unsettled feeling. Chad was the first musician to be appointed as a United Nations Ambassador for the World Federation For Mental Health (WFFMH) and was also the first to compose a theme song for World Mental Health Day. That piece, "The Light Within," comes next on the album and is a much lighter piano solo that utilizes some very effective spatial reverb effects. The next five tracks are from Where We Are: Sleep Reworks, a collection of felted piano tracks from the original Where We Are album. To further commemorate World Mental Health Day last year, Lawson released The Light Within EP featuring the theme song and four ambient reworks of songs from Where We Are by Helios and Hollie Kenniff, all of which are included on this album. The ambient pieces are all electronic with no piano, so they are quite different from the rest of the pieces yet fit into the mix very well. The last track on the album is Chad's felted piano arrangement of Taylor Swift's "this is me trying" - a great closing for a truly exceptional album!

Where We Are - Unity Edition is available to stream or download on Amazon and Apple Music/iTunes as well as many streaming platforms including Spotify and Pandora. Very highly recommended!