The extremely short duration — less than 19 minutes — classifies Mikrographía as an EP. However, such a restricted temporal frame is inversely proportional to the interplay’s quality, made explicit across three tracks of mysterious counterpoints bathing in relatively ambiguous resonance.

Aside from Chrysakis’ piano — obviously more identifiable than the rest of the palette and, in a way, dictating the extemporaneous harmonic paths of the spontaneous fluxes — the overall dynamics follow the rules of a hide-and-seek game of sorts. Think an evacuated neighborhood enshrouded by grayness, but occasionally illuminated by entrancing oblique lights. When the Rodrigueses emit whispered upper partials via viola and cello, Moimême’s guitar is probably generating a humming cloud in the background. Mira’s double bass is at the same time unobtrusive and impressive in its growling hoarseness, whenever the human entity behind it decides that a little vibrational momentum is necessary to slightly alter the mix’s balance.

In spite of its regular exploitation of noisier components, this music’s character could be generally described as Feldman-esque. Still, those murmurs, creaks and clatters suggest a subterranean tangibleness that keeps the ears on constant alert, and the mind active. On the whole, the combination of conciseness and intriguing timbres constitutes the work’s actual winning card; we can definitely accept the conventional “less is more” in this case. If only the innumerable periphrastic nonentities who inhabit the universe of improvisation followed this quintet’s example, the task of a commentator would not include so many hours wasted in acoustic tedium.