This is a fascinating release of Liza Lim’s music for strings, with two works for quartet (String Creatures and The Weaver’s Knot), and two works for solo instruments (an ocean beyond earth for cello, and The Table of Knowledge for double bass).

I like to think I know the sounds you can get out of most instruments, but the opening of String Creatures genuinely baffled me with this strange, chunky, throaty sound, and it turns out it’s a violin with a lower octave scordatura – incredible. The same goes for the second and third movements, where the four members of the JACK Quartet together create a sometimes sparkling, sometimes strange, eerie soundscape.

An ocean beyond earth evokes the frozen seas of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, and indeed, the sounds here are absolutely not of this earth. The JACK Quartet’s cellist Jay Campbell’s instrument is “tied, via each of its four strings, to a retuned violin, suspended on a stand opposite him. Four parallel threads link the instruments. By pulling on these threads with rosin-covered fingers, the player creates vibrations that span the whole instrumental setup”. It must be quite some work to set it up, but the resulting combination is incredible, conjuring sounds from synthesizers to hammered dulcimers.

What always impresses about Lim’s music is that there’s such thought put into the shapes of each work. These aren’t a straight-forward listen by any means, but if you sit forward and listen like you mean it, these works are incredibly rewarding.

Listen on Apple Music

Composer: Liza Lim
Work: String Creatures
Performers: JACK Quartet, Rohan Dasika db
Label: NMC Recordings NMCD294