You can now Pre-save '4 in a Cycle of Thirds (Jas Shaw versions)' and hear a first track, Dawn (Drone version), here:
cargo-independent.ffm.to/gz3yxuzcvm
Also, you will be getting a FREE download to this album if you order the VINYL for '4 in a Cycle of Thirds' here:
alevlenz.bandcamp.com/album/4-in-a-cycle-of-thirds OR of course from June 12th onwards in your favourite Record Store!
I thought you might be interested in a little write up about the release, so here that is also :
“The two records are very much intertwined," writes London-based German-Turkish singer and composer Alev Lenz. "I made 4 in a Cycle of Thirds with Jas in mind, inspired by a mix he created for my last album.” Lenz and Shaw have previously worked together on 2024 collaboration EP Bring Your Friends, as well as album mixes for Lenz' previous two solo records.
Lenz' original album was created from a series of single-note drones, one for each note of the chromatic scale. "When I had this idea, I wanted Jas’ touch involved somehow. I asked him for drones on each note. He sent me 12 and I wrote most of the album listening to these drones. They eventually left the picture and were replaced by new drones I made, new sounds or vocals. But the memory of them lingers in the songs, like an imprint on the retina, an afterimage. So naturally when the record was finished I sent the totality of it to Jas and said: here you go, make your versions!"
4 in a Cycle of Thirds in its original form touches on traditional folk musics, chamber music, contemporary composition, film score, and even interweaves subtle metal inflections, but now presented on double vinyl alongside Jas Shaw's versions as twin records, it has a newly foregrounded quietude, spectral and delicately nuanced. Through reduction, meticulous replacement, and sensitively applied edits, Shaw gently rebalances the light and shadow of the original pieces, coaxing new subtleties and harmonic resonance. "It occupies a space that is in-between the lines," describes Lenz.
Shaw employs a "feedback system" he created for his piano, applied here to devastating effect. "Take the key bed off it and set up a resonators, mics and a mixer. Lots of gaffa tape, lots of precarious propping stuff open. You grub around on the floor and slowly the room fills with harmonics, it’s wonderful."
And, on the relationship between the original record and these new versions, he explains "we could really let the songs drift into a different shape without worrying that we were missing elements that were great."
xx
Alev