Nº 10 VANISHING MIRROR – PILL-OH

“I just allow the splendor of the day to absorb the darkness. My own light doesn’t last for long.”

A surface reflecting beauty through light. The eyes of someone reflecting your own inner soul. Images of a reality that exists only in wishes and dreams. We find ourselves when gazing into mirrors, but we lose ourselves if we gaze too deeply. Originally from Athens, Greece, electronic artist Hior Chronik (currently based in Berlin) and classical pianist-composer Zinovia Arvanitidi have crystallized a representation of time and memory, where dreams and delicate hauntings from the past merge with the present. Vanishing Mirror is their debut album as Pill-Oh, encompassing 13 mesmerizing tracks of flimic romanticism and intricate detail.

Accomplished pianist Zinovia, whose roots lie in the piano solos of Satie and Chopin, crafts phrases with a restrained yet powerful emotive force. Her compositions center around the piano’s deep, plaintive utterances, while Hior Chronik’s electronic abstractions flow with the natural rhythm of a dream, drifting intuitively between sound and silence. The opening track February Tale conjures a vast, bare landscape seen through the purity of a child’s eyes.

In Notebook, Zinovia hammers percussively through pulsing sixteenth notes into majestic, sweeping ensemble arrangements. Where intensity builds, it’s the quiet spaces between grand passages that reveal her skillful balance of strength and vulnerability. Guided by her melancholic piano phrasing, Melodico and Memory evoke fragility and isolation, as if the surface of a lake shivers at the faintest sound. Hior Chronik overlays these haunting images with ambient dissonance. I Wake Up And You Smile pierces the darkness, with nanaye’s delicate voice whispering distant, illuminating words. The album closes on Promise, where Aaron Martin’s cello rises slowly like a curtain call.

Vanishing Mirror is presented in a 16-page art book format featuring a collaboration with France-based photographer Aëla Labbé. Her visual storytelling, parallel to the music, is imbued with rusted hues that evoke a childhood nostalgia both deep and shimmering. Children in her world wander landscapes where the sun radiates with a vaporous, indeterminate glow.

CREDIT

All music by Hior Chronik & Zinovia Arvanitidi
Mastered by Ricks Ang

Design by Ricks Ang
Photography by Aëla Labbé