Martine Altenburger, John Russell

French cellist Martine Altenburger and British guitarist John Russell recorded this live performance at the Musique en Mouvement Festival in Jarny, France in November 2008. Altenburger, Toulouse-based and conservatory-trained, moves between performances of Cage and Scelsi and improvisation with sound explorers like Michel Doneda and Lê Quan Ninh (who mastered this session). Russell, a London hardcore improviser, brings decades of experience to this encounter.

One reviewer describes listening to Duet "as if I were listening to two voices... almost as if someone had sneaked a recording device into a semi-heated debate over afternoon tea, only the words here are replaced by the sounds of bowed and struck cello and plucked and strummed acoustic guitar." The sounds "seem to sing out as if articulating words, lines of interlocking sound do feel like sentences, sometimes squabbling with one another, sometimes in harmony."

A Swedish reviewer notes that "Russell is softly few-toned, pausing, listening, Altenburger also, but she is simultaneously explosive. She both manages to close the guitar in her sound and kind of pick underneath with small microtones. The musicians are unusually expressive for moving in British improv's living room."

Another observer emphasizes Russell's quality of "negative capability"—"the ability to live without anxiety in the midst of uncertainty." He "conjoins it with rare receptivity," and Altenburger's cello "in strings and register—is a much closer partner for Russell's guitar" than percussion would be. The duo "manages to mix an appropriate soupçon of legato pacing in with the staccato and sharply pointed extensions to ensure that exaggerated timbres don't predominate."

Altenburger "scrabbles and sings on the cello, engaging Russell confidently and, at times, mimetically. She pulls a wide range of sounds from the cello, pizzicato as well as her rich, singing bow work." The sound is "excellent, warm and intimate. Wood and wire are heard with clarity, and the silences and rests sound equally live." Essential listening for those interested in acoustic string improvisation at its most conversational and intimate.