Tim Story

Despite once cutting material for Windham Hill, the Ohio keyboardist shares no family ties with Liz Story. Cavernous acoustics suit his understated approach so well that Hearts of Space Records eventually took notice and issued Beguiled, an album many regard as his finest, in 1991. Beyond a handful of childhood guitar lessons, Tim Story developed his skills without formal instruction. After working as both a recording engineer and session player, he shifted focus to composition and issued his earliest records on the small Norwegian imprint Uniton in 1982. The resulting music drew the ear of Windham Hill founder Will Ackerman, who issued two Story albums in the late 1980s and placed additional tracks on various label compilations. Although he frequently renders his melodic lines with uncommon restraint on acoustic grand piano, Story shapes the larger architecture of each piece through sweeping synthesized gestures suspended in diffuse, mysterious washes of tone. In the manner of Harold Budd, he likewise builds a deep ambiguity into his writing, evoking sentiments that resist verbal description.