Six duos by the Japanese composer Keiko Harada, written between 2000 and 2016 and recorded here for the first time. Almost every piece pairs two instruments with strikingly different sounds, such as trombone and accordion, flute and koto, or guitar and accordion. Harada builds situations in which their separate musical spaces collide and then find something in common, a kind of communication achieved without words.

Harada was born in Tokyo on 17 April 1968. She studied piano, chamber music, conducting and composition with Akira Miyoshi and Michio Mamiya at the Toho Gakuen school of music in Tokyo until 1993. Summer courses at Darmstadt (1988-96), at Akiyoshidai under Toshio Hosokawa (1991-98) and at the Bartók Seminar in Szombathely (1997) completed her training, and she later taught at Toho Gakuen herself. She won first prize at the 62nd Music Competition of Japan, with the Yasuda Prize, and has directed her own ensemble, Manufacture, since 1989. The accordionist Stefan Hussong, who has commissioned work from her, appears in four of the six pieces. The other players are Carin Levine (flutes), Naoko Kikuchi (13- and 17-string koto), Yumiko Meguri (piano), Jürgen Ruck (guitar) and Mike Svoboda (trombone). The disc is a co-production with Radio Bremen.

midstream+ (2004/08), for trombone and accordion, gives the disc its title and is a clear case of Harada's search for common ground between unlike instruments. Zero Hour (2005/08/10) sets alto and bass flute against the Japanese koto in its 13- and 17-string forms, and two of its parts are heard here. The 5th Season (2008-12), for guitar and accordion, unfolds in three parts. In (2000) is for bass flute and piano, and Third Ear Deaf II-b' (2003) for flute and accordion. The most recent work is the pair Devil Fire Tarantella and Devil Fire Tango (2014-16), for accordion and piano.

By 1999 she had received commissions from festivals in Sweden, Italy and Denmark, from ensembles such as Ictus, Champ d'Action and Elision, and from the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The scores ask for great technical command from the performers. They also demand an open, concentrated awareness of the partner and of one's own body in producing sound. Harada says her music asks the players, and by extension the listener, for love and respect towards music.

CD, Wergo WER 73542, released in 2017.