Lee Yi’s self-titled album is due out on the Thesis Project label at the very start of June. Three of its seven tracks are up as part of the preview. Hovering strings and granular, shifting atmospheres, along with muted horn, combine with more grounded piano to produce works that are both recognizable and challenging, the elements suggesting structures that never quite congeal, Yi leaving much of it to the listener’s imagination. This is the first Thesis release that will be a solo album. Previous records in the series, which is highly audio-visual, were all collaborations, by the likes of Julianna Barwick and Rafael Anton Irisarri, Dustin O’Halloran and Benoît Pioulard, and Takeshi Nishimoto and Roger Döring, just to list a few. It’s clear from listening to Lee Yi why it sits so well beside these other records, because its spaciousness, its breadth, feels like more than one intelligence is at the helm.
More on the Thesis Project at thesisproject.us. More from Lee Yi, who is based in Málaga, Spain, at leeyi.bandcamp.com and soundcloud.com/leeyiproject.