About the album

Larry Ochs - saxophone | Fred Frith - guitar | Miya Masaoka - koto

The delicate mesh of electric and acoustic, ethnic and urban, tradition and experiment sets up a tension in this music which places it apart from the high energy / noise-oriented confrontation that characterises a lot of contemporary improvising. It’s a tension, however, that is sometimes most ingeniously resolved. Contradictions abound – in the ferocious lyricism of Ochs, the placid aggression of Masaoka, Frith’s passionate detachment – but the result, rather than shocking or unsettling the listener, is as familiar as breathing, as inevitable as fire.