France chamber duo Snowdrops, formed in 2015 by Mathieu Gabry and Christine Ott, release their graceful debut album Volutes, an eloquent miniature symphony of strings, piano and the notoriously challenging Ondes Martenot instrument. Christine Ott has performed alongside celebrated film composer Yann Tiersen, longstanding UK alternative band (and reputable soundtrack composers) Tindersticks, and French post-rock experimentalists Oiseaux-Tempête, resulting in the breadth of musical knowledge and the acute, skillful sensitivity to compositional subtleties and sympathies evident in Volutes. Alongside their contribution of piano, strings, mellotron, electronics and the Ondes Martenot, for Volutes Gabry and Ott are joined by virtuosic viola player Anne Irène-Kempf. From a classical and baroque background, Kempf's extremely lively and spontaneous playing adds a special colour to the album. The duo draw from a unique combination of contemporary classical, jazz, electronic music and film score, and spent the first few years of their partnership composing essentially to picture. Most notably, this soundtrack work includes the score to Phuttiphong Aroonpheng's 2018 feature Manta Ray, which won the Lion Award for Best Film at the 2018 Venice Festival.