I didn't have high expectations - didn't have any expectations, really - when I went to see the MIVOS Quartet at The Tank on Thursday. (I went at the suggestion of a composer friend.) But, right out of the gate, it was clear that this young quartet (Violinists Olivia De Prato and Joshua Modney, violist Victor Lowrie, and cellist Isabel Castellvi) were a cut above the increasingly-crowded quartet field. Wolfgang Rihm's Quartet No. 4 (1981) was maddeningly difficult, full of aggressive, intense phrases, drastic dynamics, even extended periods of silence. John Cage's strikingly different Quartet in Four Parts (1950) was slow and atmospheric, almost hypnotic in its minimalist motifs. And Roulette (2007), by the young British/Brooklyn-based composer Anna Clyne, called upon the players to speak and make other sounds in coordination with Clyne's carefully interspersed electronics, which she controlled from a soundboard near the stage. Best of all, their presentation was approachable without being casual: like some kind of post rock event, without the lights. (More pics below.)