Clepsydra; Astray

Released on the impeccably styled Edition RZ label – one of the most reliable sources for modern composition and experimental music – Clepsydra / Astray has Romanian-French composer Rǎdulescu composing predominantly for his ‘sound icons,’ which are grand pianos laying on their side, played by bowing the strings. Daniel Kientzy’s saxophones appear through “Astray” as well. The overarching sense of the music here, though, is one of twilight environments, great caverns of dark, skin-shivering drones that emerge from and dissolve into fractured silences; one of the more alien and overwhelming listening experiences to come out of the spectralist canon. It’s staggering work, quite simply.