Duos for cello and double bass with an emphasis on "other" ways of playing. Slow and mostly quiet, these nine pieces are surprisingly varied in their sounds and timbres. Grainy, rasping drones swell like waves behind a steady high wail, and odd melodies arise amid sibilance and extended creak. A queasy mosquito whine nags above more solid repetitive sawing, giving way to sing-song harmonics in the midst of groaning, pressurized wood — an old-time ship in a tempest, albeit contained in a bottle.

There are short motifs in evidence, conglomerations of repeating sounds that set a scene before mutating or falling away. A bit of quiet stop/start with squeak and shriek inserted. Tearing paper. At times you'd be hard pressed to name the sound sources, as Rodrigues and Moir are both adept at finding and exploring completely alien worlds. As time passes, things do get a bit more insistent, even strident perhaps. Listen closely though and the grain is always there, revealed by the quiet dissolving of varnish.