"In-between the lines": Simian Mobile Disco member reworks entire new album by Turkish-German composer Alev Lenz

The original 4 in a Cycle of Thirds arrived in January on Lenz’s own label, built from a series of single-note drones – one for each note of the chromatic scale. Shaw’s new versions occupy a different territory entirely. Described in the announcement as “spectral and delicately nuanced”, the reworks foreground quietude through reduction, meticulous replacement, and sensitively applied edits.

“The two records are very much intertwined,” Lenz said. “I made 4 in a Cycle of Thirds with Jas in mind, inspired by a mix he created for my last album.”

Lenz initially asked Shaw for drones on each note. “He sent me 12 and I wrote most of the album listening to these drones,” she explained. “They eventually left the picture… but the memory of them lingers in the songs, like an imprint on the retina, an afterimage. So naturally when the record was finished I sent the totality of it to Jas and said: here you go, make your versions!”

Shaw, who previously mixed Lenz’s 2016 and 2019 albums Two-Headed Girl and 3, as well as collaborating on the 2024 EP Bring Your Friends, employed a custom feedback system for the project. The process involved removing the key bed from a piano and setting up resonators, microphones and a mixer.

“Lots of gaffa tape, lots of precarious propping stuff open,” Shaw said. “You grub around on the floor and slowly the room fills with harmonics, it’s wonderful.”

On the relationship between the original record and the new versions, Shaw added: “We could really let the songs drift into a different shape without worrying that we were missing elements that were great.”

The new edition of 4 in a Cycle of Thirds will also be accompanied by a Dolby Atmos mix created by Al Riley at Gatwick Production Studios. Shaw said the Atmos format won him over immediately, noting that spatial details requiring significant work in stereo became “often a single fader move on Atmos, and more convincing. Al really got what we were doing and watching him move sound around in three dimensions was like discovering that my bike could fly.”

Lenz will continue a vinyl playback residency at her London shopfront until 14 July, alongside an installation piece titled 39 Alpha, 39 Bravo. A further vinyl playback party is scheduled for 12 June, with Dolby Atmos listening sessions across London to follow.