Georges Lentz — From “String Quartet(s)”

From “String Quartet(s)” is a seventy-two-minute journey into shifting/ unpredictable sound craft, which moves between modern string composition, all-out noise, and a mix of the two.

Georges Lentz is a Luxembourg-born composer/ sound artist, now living in Sydney, who has been active since the late 1980s. His work is inspired by both the starry night sky in the Outback and Aboriginal art, with the front cover of this release taking in what looks like a close-up/ abstract picture of cave art.

The material on this release was derived from a forty-three-hour sound collage that was played in the Cobar Sound Chapel- a water tank set in the Australian outback. The album is split into eight ‘sections’ each of which lasts between six and eleven minutes.

As a release From “String Quartet(s)”  is quite difficult to quantify/ tie down, as it really has quite an abstract & unpredictable unfold throughout.  For example, “(section 1)” moves from distant/ gathering string plucks and picks. Onto sudden louder sour sways & tone wavering, though to jarring baying and whistling textures blurred with tonal hiss, and sped-up tone swoon. By “(section 4)” we have sudden glitching in & out string bay/ piecing string fiddle, that shifts into textural noise scrab- edged with seemingly backwards/ almost spinning out of control/ sour string tone morph.

As we move towards the end of the release, we go from the blended fork picks, slow and haunting swoons, and tight skuttling tone darts of “(Section 7)”. Though to “(Section 8)” which moves from sudden up-close rustling, onto drifting-in-the-wind string hum and hover. Though to blends of baying moodiness, and simmering string bay.

So don’t be fooled by the album's title From “String Quartet(s)” – as there is nothing formally string quartet about it, instead it’s a violent to dreamy journey into unpredictable composition.