Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Beins

2025 stock ** "Lidingö, a summit between innenklavier specialist Andrea Neumann and percussionist Burkhard Beins, is altogether knottier and gnarlier. Part of the important Berlin scene, the two play together in Phosphor as well as with Sven-Åke Johansson. Beins is a masterful player, often eschewing struck percussion in favor of rubbing, stroking, and scraping, only occasionally landing a gargantuan thudding bass drum for example. Neumann uses only the strings, resonating board, and metal frame of a piano - its insides, as the name suggests - with a mixing desk to create a symphony of sounds from harpsichord-like to percussive to buckling metal. Structured to serve as something of a travelogue (the title is the name of a small Swedish town), the heady brain-bending sounds evoke images of places you've never been, roads never traveled, faces never seen. Ideas and notions flicker by as the two musicians concoct their metal machine music. Don't be fooled by the rustic photographs gracing this release, the improvisations here are wonderfully otherworldy even as they're firmly rooted in what might be called the vernacular of industry."