Christina Vantzou, Brussels resident and former Dead Texan, is keeping symphonic post-rock alive (in a good way) with an album of beautifully layered string meditations for 7-piece orchestra. By ridding the genre of all that melodramatic drumming and excessive guitar riffage — oh wait, this is basically a classical album! This is some Penderecki shit right here. This is some Koyaanisqatsi shit. Turn this on and your plants will grow faster. It’s quite a lovely batch of recordings, and it has all those moments you find in ambient drone where the melody sort of gets lost in its own wake. It’s perhaps another gateway (to abstract music) release from Kranky Records, which has been dominating this year.
• Christina Vantzou: http://christinavantzou.com
• Kranky: http://www.kranky.net