Before the beats, the strings, the choirs, the production… it was just me and the piano.
That’s how every song on Wonderland started. Two hands on the keys. A feeling I couldn’t shake. A thought I needed to follow before it disappeared. Sketches from Wonderland is me going back there.
Sixteen piano versions of the songs, recorded live, in one take each, on a Sunday evening. No edits. No polishing things I didn’t mean. Just what came out in the moment. Melody. Muscle memory. The weight of the keys under my hands.
These aren’t demos. They’re not scraps or leftovers. They’re what’s left when you take the costume off.
The original Wonderland is big. Cinematic. Layered. Dramatic in places. It reaches. It stretches. It glows. This is the same body, without the lighting.
Some songs sit close to their original shape. Others surprised me. Big moments turned fragile. Rhythms loosened. Anthems slowed into something closer to a confession.
You can hear the room. You can hear me breathe. Sometimes you can hear hesitation before a note lands. I didn’t try to hide that.
I wanted to remember where these songs actually came from. Not the finished version. The first version. The one that arrived before I knew what it was meant to become.
Playing them like this felt different. Quieter, obviously. But also more direct. There’s nowhere to hide in a piano take. No production to lean on. If the feeling isn’t there, the whole thing collapses. I think that’s why I love this version of the album so much. It feels like the inside of the songs.
If you listen, I hope you do it slowly. Low light. No multitasking. Let the spaces sit. Let the notes hang a bit longer than feels normal.
Let the piano lead.