Composer and pianist Lubomyr Melnyk is the pioneer of Continuous Music— a piano technique he has developed since the 70s that uses extremely rapid notes and note-series to create a tapestry of sound. Inspired by the minimal, phase and pattern musics of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley, yet frustrated by the ecstatic detachment from reality they can encourage, Lubomyr Melnyk created Continuous Music, based in the innovations of the minimalist composers but with its roots more deeply planted in harmony. His first record KMH: Piano Music in the Continuous Mode (Music Gallery Editions, 1978) is the fruition of the idea he began developing in 1974 reimagines the sentiment expressed by Reich in his watershed Music for 18 Musicians, realized entirely for Solo Piano. Overtones blend or clash according to the harmonic changes. The technique of mastering his complex note patterns and speeds makes his music difficult for the normal pianist, and the kinetic athleticism of Melnyk's performance is unparalleled.
The influence of dancer, choreographer, and Igor Wakhevitch-collaborator Carolyn Carlson on Melnyk underlies his method. He recalls,
"The entire Continuous Music concept developed from my work with the Carolyn Carlson Dance Company which was based in Paris (at the Opera ) during the mid- 1970's. This was a completely new dance format. based on Carolyn's extraordinary and mystical perceptions of dance-space-movement. There has never been nor ever will be anyone like her. She moved like a tiger and a spider and a bird all at once. She was (is) a virtual explosion of the entire physical plane and I was to play for 16 minutes straight while her students moved across the floor. She developed the moving and standing still all at once phenomenon."
Melnyk has released a number of solo piano and ensemble works on the Bandura label through the 1970s and 1980s, and has composed many more, though relatively little was heard from him until the CD reissue of KMH (Unseen Worlds, 2007) and his private-press CDR editions of his own work began appearing.
"KMH isn't cold steel and hard angles; it's minimalism at its most lush, ornate, and taxing."
-Pitchfork