Anton Lambert and Thanos Polymeneas Lion — tri-n-os

The collaboration between Anton Lambert and Thanos Polymeneas Liontiris, captured on their album, tri-n-os, is astonishing. There is little I can say to describe the intricate, mesmerising, and haunted work that is this release. 

Sure, there are nine songs, each adorned with a corresponding name, but they are merely movements in what is one, long composition. Minimal yet totally saturated, the sound sources have the feel of intruding on our everyday ways of listening -- stunted, screeched, droning -- but that quality never tips over into the frivolous or accidental. Instead, the noises captured result from some form of excitation, restless and quivering, far more mundane and frightening than what the trained hand could coax. As long and drone-y as things get, the sense of tension remains, as if the taught strings that can be perceived were themselves informing the structural form of the piece. It is one thing to let the instruments speak for themselves, but quite another to take cues from their intelligence and modes of being as compositional devices.