Taking inspiration from Greek mythology, the six track album continues Masubuchi's fascination with the polarities of movement and stasis, pared down to just acoustic guitar, grand piano and trumpet, each charting the wintery expanses of purgatory. The inclusion of the trumpet makes this record one of Masubuchi's most distinctly jazz orientated releases, but the music, a mixture of delicately composed motifs and ruminating improvisation, is played with the grace and spaciousness of chamber music.

Of Masabuchi's two chosen collaborators in the trio, pianist Fumi Endo is the most similar in temperament and approach. Both musicians have an unhurried yet crystalline clarity in their playing, which is born from the exacting, painstaking care they take in ushering each sound. For both, their instrument is collaborator they dwell in slow moving conversation with. When they do finally choose the way the wish to respond, the sound is allowed to fully resonate, hang and then gently decay, creating a tapestry of voices that ripple like sunlight on frozen tree branches. Kawamura’s bruised, gauzey trumpet provides thick brush strokes of rich melodic color on the more composed pieces, but it's during the improvised material that his inclusion in this trio becomes the most striking. Often providing an important rhythmic and textural counterpoint to Endo and Masubuchi's delicate interplay, Kawamura's range of extended techniques runs from fluttering valves, flute like bird song and grainy spittle accents that call to mind both Paul Motian's sensitive percussion work and Toru Takemitsu's most ghostly film scores.

Seeing a recent live performance of this material at the celebrated Tokyo venue Ftarri has provided a deeper insight into the core of the trios music. All three musicians are able to play within a particularly narrow bandwidth of volume, touching near inaudibility but never asking their audience to strain too much to hear. This bravery in approach is a warm invitation to the listener to join the trio in surveying the fascinating sounds they conjure. In a world saturated with noise and distraction, Styx offers a rare and liminal space—like the mythic river itself—where one can pause, reflect, and renew.