Snowdrops are readying the release of their Volutes LP via the UK-based avant-ambient label Injazero Records. The French-based chamber duo includes composer, pianist, and Ondes Martenot virtuoso Christine Ott, as well as musician Mathieu Gabry. Additionally, the upcoming album finds the pair joined by viola player Anne Irène-Kempf.
Snowdrops formed in 2015 and initially worked on soundtrack material. Composing to picture primarily, the pair provided an award-winning score for Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s 2018 feature Manta Ray, which also won the Lion Award for Best Film at the 2018 Venice Festival (Orizzonti category). The soundtrack was released in 2019 by the UK-label Gizeh Records.
“Ultraviolet” is our first listen in on Volutes. The pair’s experience soundtracking films might be seen in reverse here with their simmering ambiance and emotive melodic capabilities yielding music that is both sonically textured with subtle drama as well as visually redolent with cinematic potential. Gliding tones set a pastoral mood of quiet contemplation to open, but it is not long before this twilight spell gives way to a visitation from Ott’s Ondes Martenot. Spritely, and with an otherworldly ability to bend into eerie shapes, the instrument soars through the air like a water spirit at play above a bubbling spring.
