SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: ALEV LENZ – 4 IN A CYCLE OF THIRDS

ALEV LENZ
4 IN A CYCLE OF THIRDS
INDEPENDENT

If you think it is a straightforward process to combine a song form with classical music compositional structure, you could be way off, with so many such experiments, remaining just that – experiments with that dreaded failed adjective added.

Luckily for Alev Lenz, a Turkish/German, Grammy-nominated, record producer, singer-songwriter, and composer, her previous three albums have shown that such experiments can actually work, as does her latest offering SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: ALEV LENZ – 4 IN A CYCLE OF THIRDS.

Lenz started out with a set concept—building a series of pieces based on each individual note of the Western chromatic scale, and then adding a set melody and lyrics. And while it all sounds somewhat complicated on paper, Lenz has created 11 musical pieces that sound thoroughly natural and unforced, as if they were done by instinct rather than through a set concept.

No wonder Lenz recorded this song cycle at Studio Richter Mahr space in rural Oxfordshire by the special invitation of studio owners, composer Max Richter and film maker Yulia Mahr. What came out was an album that easily blurs the lines between all thing modern—pop, jazz and classical.

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