Variations (Another Timbre) showcases Swiss composer-performer Christoph Schiller at the spinet, piano, and with a select arsenal of amplified objects. Across seven “variations,” Schiller explores a unique hybrid of structured improvisation and predetermined material, recording pairs of pieces for spinet, objects, and piano, then layering them in sequence - a “chain fashion” that blurs identity and authorship. The result is not conventional variation form, but a process of emergence, immersion, and gradual transformation, where every sound feels simultaneously fragile, precise, and mysterious.​

The opening is stark: plucked and muted spinet phrases drift above a sizzle of object sounds, each gesture meticulously measured. Texture is tightly controlled; pitch and resonance drift in and out of focus, as if hovering between memory and presence. With each new section, materials overlap - sometimes as canons, often in echo or subtle counterpoint - so that voices mix, separate, and fade into microtonal haze. Schiller’s approach privileges acoustic phenomena like microtonality, overtone interplay, and momentary ambiguity over fixed gestures or dramatic gestures. Silence is integral; energy ebbs and flows, but the music’s pacing is unhurried, inviting deep listening and immersion.

Recorded with transparency and subtle spatial depth, Variations rewards repeated attention. Schiller’s sensitive timing and tactile surfaces lend the work an atmosphere of elusive lyricism and radical modesty - a modern kind of intimacy that fuses baroque sensibility with experimental openness. The album stands as both an exploration of spinet’s expressive range and a quietly radical meditation on form, chance, and the beauty of living sound.​