Vantzou, Christina: The Reintegration of the Ear LP

Christina Vantzou's new album is a shimmering wonder; pairing a durational electroacoustic suite featuring Oliver Coates, John Also Bennett, Roman Hiele and Irene Kurka with a collage of poignant environmental recordings and acoustic sketches that counterbalance the record's mercurial fantasies - with additional contributions from Sissi Rada, Ben Bertrand and Minna Choi. Sublime, elevated listening that will resonate deeply with admirers of Michèle Bokanowski, Moniek Darge, Harold Budd.

Since her earliest work for the Kranky label, Vantzou has been conjuring unique, time-dilating sonic tapestries that bridge the gap between surrealist art, documentary filmmaking and luminous world-building. 'The Reintegration of the Ear' started life as a 20-minute commission for the INA-GRM, intended as an acousmatic performance designed to encourage deep, engaged listening. Reimagined in the studio with a talented crew of collaborators, Vantzou unspools acoustic elements with subtle, disorienting arrangements, never hammy or over-referential. When the ghosts of an orchestra materialise like aural hallucinations over JAB’s synth drones in the intro, Vantzou cuts to near silence, leaving us with bare traces rather than a saccharine hit. And when German soprano Irene Kurka's voice wisps across the stereo field over Oliver Coates' almost-silent, subby cello, it’s all kept in absolute harmony by Vantzou's controlled hand. Wind transforms into white noise, birdsong pirouettes with analog detritus, glitches whirr like a swarm of insects, painting a picture that's abstract and yet somehow immediately recognisable as Vantzou's own.

'Observations, Edits, a Cure for Restlessness' on the b side is a patchwork of "domestic fragments" that Vantzou collected over the last decade. Over a 20-minute arc, her personal and artistic movements are mapped and tracked, folding in Sissi Rada’s Harp, JAB’s flute, Ben Bertrand’s Bass clarinet and Minna Choi’s strings into intimate environmental recordings of Bennett cooking in their shared apartment, Orthodox chants from a local priest in her cousin’s village in Vresthena, the teeming landscape in Zambujeira de Baixo, a gorgeous nature reserve on the Vicentine coast.

Meditative, whisper-quiet and reflective but never "ambient", Vantzou’s music feels like a dreamlike snapshot of life as it meanders imperceptibly around us - still, but unstoppable. And while the whole diaristic dream-weaving thing has arguably become a bit over saturated these last few years, Vantzou conveys a heightened, authentic sense of humanity that fully transcends the moment.

An evocative, quiet stunner.