They may be relatively young, but don’t let that fool you. Belgian duo SCHNTZL have been intensive collaborators since their early teens and have spent almost 10 years crafting unique sonic landscapes together. And it shows. The maturity in this material is deftly honed through an almost telepathic musical understanding between Lasure & Van De Velde, resulting in music that brims with balance and poise. In SCHNTZL’S constellation, the music is as much about what is left unsaid, what exists between the notes as much as melody itself. Live, they seek to preserve these delicate moments and it is that which imbues their rich soundscapes with an atmosphere of confident exploration. As a duo they maintain a co-dependent balancing act. Through the acoustic staples of piano and percussion, enriched by assorted keys, electronic triggers and other toys, SCHNTZL’s minimalism is an exercise in restraint, purposefully navigating compositional pathways, building layered motifs into crescendos of free improvisation in their quest for the elemental.