C'est Un Jardin Secret, Ma Soeur, Une Source Scellé, Une Fontaine Close...; Les Courants De L'espace; Ethers; Mémoire / Erosion

While each of the pieces on this collection of Tristan Murail’s work has merit, it’s hard, at times, to move beyond the shadowing that’s central to “Mémoire/Erosion.” This composition is announced by a brusque blat of trombone, which is then followed by a swarm of strings replicating the trombone’s notes. Murail structured the work as a replication of the “reinjection loop” studio technique, wherein sounds accumulate and erode as they pile onto each other; you can hear Murail, here, trying to echo that erosion with the collapsing, scratchy surfaces that he coaxes from the instrumentalists and their instruments. The Ondes Martenot-centred “Les Courantes De L’espace” is the other highlight here, forbidding yet curiously engaging.