​The World's Fastest Pianist Is About to Drop an Album

Lubomyr Melnyk is pretty freakin' fast. Thanks to a special technique he developed known as "continuous music, the Ukrainian musician is able to simultaneously play up to 19 notes per second on each hand—making him the fastest piano player in the world. (Though he's not quite as quick as the Black Midi kids who manage to cram five million notes into one song.)

Melnyk just announced that his newest album, Rivers And Streams, will be out November 27 via the cosmically-inclined, experimental label Erased Tapes. "The greatest of all miracles in the universe is water," Melnyk said of the concept behind the album via a press release. "Water is the most magical and the most mysterious of all things we know! And so I dedicate this album to the rivers and streams of this world—in gratitude for their beauty!"

The pianist also explained that his skills come from a martial arts-like approach to mastering the body. "In the body of the continuous piano master, the fingers and the hands turn into water, air and stone. The fingers [must] physically transform the music into one of these three elements." We can't make this stuff up, folks.

Watch a short documentary portrait of Melnyk below and listen to the album cut "Parasol."

Track Listing for Rivers And Streams

1. Parasol
2. The Pool of Memories
3. Sunshimmers
4. Ripples in a Water Scene
5. The Amazon: The Highlands
6. The Amazon: The Lowlands

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