Greek, Göteborg-based-based pianist-composer Zoe Efstathiou focuses on the shifts between improvisation and the intricate relationships of the overtones of acoustic instruments, electroacoustic textures, and the sonic potential of light installations. Her music interpolates the momentary with the ever-evolving, exploring ideas related to time, expectation and memory. She is known for her ongoing work with Swedish modular synth explorer (and double bass player) Egil Kalman and Norwegian cellist Oda Dyrnes.

Edge of Chaos is Efstathiou’s debut solo piano album. It was recorded at Athletic Sound in Halden and Sjöströmsalen in Göteborg and released by Efstathiou’s Alkekung Records and the Swedish label iDEAL Recordings. Efstathiou dedicates the album to her beloved grandfather Dimitris Bassoukas.

Efstathiou explores on Edge of Chaos her fascination with the piano overtones, often the prepared piano. The five intricate, with titles that refer to Greek mythical and ancient sites and figures, employ competing oscillations of strings that interact with room acoustics, microphone placements, the piano’s pedals, and the piano’s soundboard. She creates mysterious and cryptic pieces that rarely use the piano’s keyboard in a conventional manner but all explore the piano’s arresting resonant qualities. While listening to the last piece, “Dione”, you may sense that the mythological figures still chanting their powerful spells. Efstathiou transforms the piano into an otherworldly, ethereal and percussive sonic entity that produces hypnotic, ambient and sometimes even dissonant sounds but arranges all in cohesive drone textures.

Edge of Chaos suggests a highly immersive listening experience that feels out of our common sense of time. This listening experience distorts our perception of time and invites an introspective experience of multiple and expanded temporalities. Intriguing and masterful.

Eyal Hareuveni

Zoe Efstathiou (piano)