I’ve been following Jordi Forniés for quite a while now, and when I heard about the “Nokto 2“ release, I knew we were in for something special. Forniés has this knack for taking simple piano compositions and turning them into these profound emotional experiences that just hit different. So yeah, expectations were high going in – and somehow this six-track EP still managed to catch me off guard with how deep it goes.
What Forniés has crafted here is a deeply personal conceptual work exploring themes of loss, self-discovery, and the search for new meaning. These are weighty subjects that could easily become overwhelming or pretentious in lesser hands, but there’s a remarkable restraint and wisdom in how these emotions are channeled through the piano. The result is something that manages to be both profoundly melancholic and genuinely comforting – a musical equivalent of finding peace within struggle.

The EP occupies a fascinating space between new age contemplation and ambient texture, but there’s serious compositional depth backing up the atmosphere. You can tell this is ambient music that actually cares about melody and structure – the way Forniés builds these moments, you can feel the thought behind each decision. The minimalism here serves the emotion, rather than just floating around being pretty.
First off – and this really impressed me – the storytelling through pure instrumental music is genuinely solid. Each track flows into the next like chapters in a book you can’t put down, except instead of words, you’re getting these delicate piano phrases that somehow communicate more than most lyrics ever could. The production is clean but not sterile. There’s enough space in the mix for the notes to breathe, for silence to mean something. You know how sometimes minimalist music feels empty? This doesn’t.
‘It’s Time To Dream’ is a gentle push into another universe. The keys shimmer as if someone is swinging a chandelier made of light right above your head. Everything is arranged so that your state, your sensations, everything slows down, your breathing evens out, and you feel calm.
‘Blue Air’ is more about a slow wind that comes into the room through an open window and brings with it a light melancholy. The keys keep shimmering, but the high notes cut subtly into the atmosphere, making it transparent and slightly sharp.
‘The Rain That Shines’ plays on the contrast between light and water. It is the music of a sunset reflected on the surface of a lake. The rhythm is viscous, time here stops being linear, and the mood hangs somewhere between nostalgia and acceptance.
‘Beings’ looks into space, yet without grandeur. Only infinity and a warm vacuum where a calm, almost motherly love sounds. This is a track you can easily get lost in and never look for a way back.
‘Morning Drops’ is a light moment before the day starts to truly trouble you. A simple, almost watercolor melody in which you can see morning dew on the leaves and the slow shadows from the sun. Everything sounds so effortless that you begin to doubt whether you ever had problems at all.
‘Love Me More Than Ever’ closes the album like a strong yet tender embrace. Gentle ambient, soft transitions, the feeling that you stand in a circle of people with whom you share a common language without words. And when everything fades, a very warm echo remains, one that holds on for a long time.
What really got me hooked though is how the whole thing flows. The mood changes aren’t dramatic or in-your-face – they’re more subtle shifts that creep up on you. One minute you’re in this contemplative headspace, next thing you know the energy has completely transformed, but somehow it all makes sense together. Forniés actually planned out this emotional arc instead of just throwing six random piano pieces together and calling it an EP.
It’s contemplative music, which means it demands your attention and patience in a way that not everyone’s gonna be down for. Also, at six tracks, it sometimes feels like Forniés is just getting warmed up when it’s already over. There are moments where you want the artist to push certain ideas further, to really explore the depths of what’s being set up. But maybe that’s the point? Maybe the brevity is what makes it hit different?
‘Nokto 2‘ is one of those rare releases that actually justifies calling itself “conceptual.” Forniés has crafted something that works both as background music for your introspective moments and as something you can actively listen to and discover new details in. The piano/ambient/new age combo has been done before, and done well. But Forniés brings enough personality and compositional skill to make it feel fresh, to make it feel like his own thing.
If you’re into artists like Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, or even some of the more contemplative Boards of Canada material, this is absolutely worth your time. It’s the kind of release that grows on you, revealing new layers the more you sit with it. This is a work of truly high cinematic quality, and while I wouldn’t claim to be a prophet, it carries the feeling of a record that could, in time, achieve cult status.
*This review was made possible by SubmitHub

