The string quartets on this album by composer date from between 2004 and 2019. Over that period, has incorporated various new influences into her music and has accordingly gained wider attention. She has worked closely with the , whose interpretations of her music may be taken as definitive. 's music has a modernist-expressionist core, but other ideas are woven into it seamlessly. She says that travel and research are essential to what she does musically. There are traces of her Chinese heritage in multiple movements of the , but also influences from other international experiences. The album takes its title from the , which was inspired by hearing distinctive insect sounds on a trip to Cambodia and reflecting at the same time on the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s. It is an extraordinary work that grows in impact with each hearing. The studio sound is another contributor to the album's success, vividly rendering the album's dual sound worlds of natural and machine processes. Those not yet familiar with this distinctively eclectic contemporary composer are advised to sample her music here. ~ James Manheim