Mark Andre’s music is introverted and fragile, but it speaks to the listener with a shy intensity: hij! This is the title given by the German-French composer to a pair of pieces recorded for this CD by the crème de la crème of avant-garde music ensembles: the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne conducted by Mariano Chiacchiarini as well as the SWR Vocal Ensemble and Experimental Studio with conductor Marcus Creed and sound director Joachim Haas. The music on this album is characterized by the unique nature of its sounds. It sensitizes our ears to the tiniest nuances and creates mesmerizing fields of tension on the borders between sound and silence. Intricate and subtly transformed contrapuntal structures weave their way through hij 1 (for orchestra) like bewitching sound shadows searching for resonance, a resonance which becomes the point of departure for hij 2 (for vocal ensemble and electronics). This music is absolutely contemporary, yet it embraces the inherited musical tradition in a completely authentic and unpretentious manner. It slips stealthily into our consciousness and vanishes just as mysteriously.