Deeply challenging, even confrontational, to the classical string quartet format, composer JG Thirlwell’s Dystonia is a leap forward not only for listeners, but for musicians as well. The renowned Mivos Quartet’s fiery interpretation of these five pieces — each in its own way difficult, harrowing, engaging and uplifting — is also a tribute to their dedication, skill and sense of adventure as artists. "This is bold, insistent music that grabs you and takes you where it wants to go," writes Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon in his liner notes for the album. That sentiment lands with a fury in the recording's central piece "Ozymandias," a not-for-the-faint-of-heart excursion that channels the tension and dread of, for example, Bernard Herrmann's famed Psycho score, but expands on it with the subtle, stately majesty of Bartók and Cage. “We recorded six compositions for Dystonia,” Thirlwell explains. “Three were already composed, and the other three I wrote in 2020-2021 before entering the studio: ‘Apeirophobia,’ a long-form composition for conventional score, and two instructional pieces that were later combined into one during mixing. With these, the intention was to experiment with extended technique, as well as different tonal qualities and dynamics that didn’t exist in the other pieces."
