Maintaining incredible chronological accuracy despite the knowledge that time isn’t, in fact, linear, Belgium-based composer Christina Vantzou has announced her fourth album on Kranky. It’s called N°4, and it comes out April 6. Now, not to put too fine a point on it here, but April is the FOURTH month of the Gregorian calendar. Again: this is her fourth album. (Are you getting it?)
The recording process was reportedly distinctly Vantzouan (a totally real thing): the press release talks of “blur[ing] the lines of hierarchy” by letting anyone involved in the recording process “add or delete elements,” as well as willfully cultivating “prepared spontaneity,” a phrase I haven’t seen since the syllabus of that improv class I failed. The result is an album with a unique “emotive textural intuition, with hushed drones and delicate gestures eliding in the periphery of the mix.”
Still, Vantzou’s clearly pulling out all the stops for this, her fourth album, because she’s enlisting four times (give or take) the usual number of contributors to take part in her minimalist music-making mischief. Who are we talking, you ask?! Well, we’ve got your Steve Hauschildt, your Angel Deradoorian, your John Also Bennett, your Beatrijs De Klerck, and some of your members of Echo Collective. That honestly strikes me as just way too many people to be in a recording studio at once (not to mention conspicuously more than four); but hey, she’s the expert!
Now, listen: I’m not going to fource you, but you should really pre-order the record on the Kranky Bandcamp page and check out the full tracklisting below. And have you listened to lead single “Some Limited and Waning Memory” yet?? Make sure to check it out and leave a comment below — we’ll upvote our favorite responses! <3
N°4 tracklisting:
01. Glissando for Bodies and Machines in Space
02. Percussion in Nonspace
03. At Dawn
04. Doorway
05. Some Limited and Waning Memory
06. N°4 String Quartet
07. Staircases
08. Sound House
09. Lava
10. Garden of Forking Paths
11. Remote Polyphony
More about: Christina Vantzou
