Tristan Allen, “Osni the Flare” (RVNG Intl., 2026)

This latest opus from the Brooklyn-based composer/puppeteer is the second part of a planned trilogy that began with 2023’s Tin Iso and the Dawn. Notably, that last album absolutely floored me and was easily one of my favorite releases of the year, so my expectations for this next installment were quite high indeed. Happily, Osni the Flare is yet another stunner, but it feels like a bit more like a score to a larger work than it does a stand-alone album. That makes sense, as it is exactly that, yet the same was true of its predecessor as well—the music and visual elements just seem to be more intimately intertwined this time around. That is perfectly fine by me, as Allen’s concise self-description of their art as “building a world with music & puppets” is a literal (if understated) fact that wildly undersells the sheer magic and wonder of this expanding mythology brought to life through a virtuosic ballet of music, marionettes, and light. 

It is fair to say that I am not normally the target demographic for either puppetry or self-created mythologies unless they are coming from an endearingly unhinged outsider art direction. However, I am eternally drawn towards artists with a bold and singular vision like a moth to a dragon’s ember and Allen certainly fits the bill in that regard. Unsurprisingly, the execution of that vision is yet another crucial consideration, as everyone knows someone who can make the most mundane anecdote seem absolutely mesmerizing and someone else who can make even the most dramatic events seem punishingly dull. Allen is very much one of the former rare souls who can seemingly make anything seem beautiful and poetic. Moreover, telling this particular story has consumed the last decade of Allen’s life and it absolutely shows. This project feels like both a life’s work and a genuine labor of love painstakingly chiseled to perfection. In fact, I was genuinely amazed that this album only took three years to make given that Allen played every instrument while simultaneously crafting the hauntingly surreal puppet world that the album inhabits (and there was plenty of sound design involved as well).

For those just catching up with the story, Tin Iso and the Dawn told the story of two puppets who ventured into a shadow realm through a hole in the sky to “bring forth a rising sun and the creation of a world.” In this second installment, a puppet named Osni finds embers in the belly of a dragon and unwittingly ignites the apple tree that she was trying to protect from the winter chill. Desperate to save the tree, Osni summons returning star Iso (now the god of the sea), but things quickly go from bad to worse when Iso’s efforts drown both Osni and the garden. Bummer ending, right? Not so fast! In a surprise twist, Osni crosses into the beyond with “her spirit alight with flame” and becomes the god of fire. 

While certainly an eventful and drama-filled day for all involved, Allen tells that story in an impressively sensual and dreamlike way. There are certainly some well-earned crescendos of smoldering intensity, but dark whimsy and bittersweet beauty are considerably more rampant and Allen displays a real talent for making motifs drift in and out of focus like an elusive and mysterious mirage. They also have a wonderfully organic and subtly playful approach to composition, as melodies languorously intertwine, dance, blossom, and ignite into smoldering distortion and the instrumentation ranges from proper classical gear like pianos and organs to toys, puppet sounds, field recordings, and old-timey pump organs. Somehow, however, it all sounds like it belongs together—as if a Pandora’s Box of delicate music box melodies, dreamy flutes, churning strings, and ramshackle puppet orchestras suddenly opened up when Allen sat down at the piano and then slammed shut again with the final notes of “Osni Closing.”

For me, the stone-cold stunner at the heart of the album is “Act III: Rite,” as an achingly gorgeous music box melody gradually transforms into a churning haze of strings, curdled brass, and gnarled distortion without ever losing the twinkling beauty of its soul. I especially loved how it sounds like there is an entire submerged brass band in the final stretch. In fact, you should probably stop reading and listen to it right now, as the day I don’t find it incredibly moving will be the day that I start mourning the sad death of my sense of wonder. 

I have also fallen in a bit in love with “Act II: Pyre,” as blearily disjointed patterns gradually cohere into a haunting organ reverie, a flanged and hallucinatory dance, a beautifully bittersweet xylophone motif, and a hissing coda that dissolves into something resembling a glimpse of ghostly outsider R&B heard through a veil of static. Notably, that last bit also surfaces in another excellent piece (“Act II: Dragon”), but this whole fucking album is a mesmerizing rabbit hole worth plunging down again and again, as each fresh immersion brings out more cool details and textures. In short, this is another great Tristan Allen album, but the big twist this time around is that there were also a series of videos waiting to dazzle me anew with similarly haunting and evocative manipulations of light and shadow. I love absolutely everything about this project.

Listen here.