In these recessionary times, the duet offers the optimum solution: the opportunity for dialogue and interaction, but with logistics and expense kept to a minimum. Of course, such strictures are nothing new for the avant-garde, those flowers which bloom between the cracks in the marginal wastelands. Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's résumé includes more than its fair share of twosomes, with drummers forming a prominent strand. Recent partners include Hamid Drake, Paul Hession, Paal Nilssen-Love and Chris Corsano, but this encounter with Chicago-based Michael Zerang ranks among the most rewarding.

It helps that both have a well of shared experience to draw upon, not least their 13 years together as integral parts of Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, and Zerang's role within McPhee's Survival Unit III trio.