Over the course of five albums since
Aranis' 2005 eponymous debut album, composer/bassist
Joris Vanvinckenroye and company have continued to reinvent themselves, even as their avant-prog acoustic instrumental chamber music template has remained a solid foundation. With
Vanvinckenroye's driving post-minimalist contrapuntal composing style and inherent melodicism, along with the ensemble's warm acoustic timbres,
Aranis and
Aranis II were most explicitly cut from the same cloth, but the band delivered a surprise with its third album, 2009's
Songs from Mirage, which strongly emphasized the beautiful and ethereal contributions from three female guest vocalists. The following year's
RoqueForte, their most avant rockish outing, included avant-prog drummer
Dave Kerman in the lineup. With 2012's
Made in Belgium,
Aranis remain unpredictable, dropping the drums and featuring the core sextet of
Vanvinckenroye, violinist
Liesbeth Lambrecht, accordionist
Marjolein Cools, flutist
Jana Arns, acoustic guitarist
Stijn Denys, and newcomer pianist
Ward De Vleeschhouwer, and -- most significantly -- drawing their repertoire from a host of Belgian composers rather than performing
Vanvinckenroye's pieces exclusively. For fans of minimalism and post-minimalism,
Made in Belgium is a fine place to start investigating
Aranis. They certainly prove to be skillful interpreters of
Wim Mertens, whose two pieces here are rendered with stunning precision, as one would anticipate from expertly played music of the
Glass and
Reich school. Lengthy melodic lines spin out beautifully against a foundation of expansive, rippling arpeggiated chords, as
Aranis explicitly draw their own stylistic connection to the composer, whose influence on the band was probably always present, if not this overt.