Karen Salicath Jamali’s New Offering “Angel Haniel’s Clearing” Is a Prayer in Piano Form

For most musicians, the path to a piano composition is hours of study, repetition, revision. For Karen Salicath Jamali, it’s sleep. Literally. “Angel Haniel’s Clearing,” her latest single, came to her like much of her work has since 2015—in a dream, fully formed, with no written notation, no formal training, and no earthly origin story beyond what she describes as light, sound, and presence.

The song itself is a gentle, high-toned piano work, balancing clarity and calm without slipping into background-music blandness. It’s sparse but not empty—deliberate in its movement, like a conversation carried in whispers rather than proclamations. The track doesn’t crescendo or explode; it arrives, sits beside you, and stays just long enough to clear the emotional air.

Jamali’s story sounds apocryphal—until you listen. After a traumatic head injury in 2012, she began hearing music in her dreams during a long recovery process. She had never played piano before. Now, she’s released over 2,500 compositions, performed solo at Carnegie Hall eight times, and received global awards for her meditative sound. This isn’t a gimmick or a wellness cash-in—it’s an artist following an impulse most of us can’t explain and wouldn’t dare ignore.

Guided by the energy of Archangel Haniel—an entity associated with grace and emotional clarity—the piece functions as more than just instrumental music. It leans into a kind of spiritual minimalism, where every note feels like it’s doing the work of five. She says birds sing outside her window when the dreams arrive. You start to believe it.

What pushes this release into another realm is the mastering by Maria Triana, whose name appears in the liner notes of artists like Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, and Bob Dylan. The sound here is polished without being sterilized—preserving the raw essence of a track that came from the subconscious but still sounds fully present.

Even the cover artwork—painted by Salicath herself—extends the track’s energy. It’s visual evidence of the same creative frequency, channeled through a different medium.

If her previous single “A Moment of Peace” was a soft exhale after a storm (earning her a Global Music Award), “Angel Haniel’s Clearing” is the stillness that follows—something quieter, more internal, and no less urgent.

You don’t walk away from this piece humming it. You walk away quieter. That might be the point.