An album of double cello studio recordings from Buenos Aires in 2019 by cellists Violeta Garcia and Emilie Girard-Charest. Lots of quick-quick motion from the get-go, spanning the instruments' range from warm and mellow to spiked and sibilant rapidity.

It's apparent from the beginning that these two are listening very closely to one another, breathing together, as it were. This makes for some heart-stopping interplay; lightning call and response, held chordage, grind and thump and prickle. At times they smear sound on each other or set up minimal points of sonic agreement, bouncing back and forth in some unknown game. A mad avian battle develops out of popping, scratching and hiss. I especially love the tiny creaks and groans peppered throughout — a reminder that it's wood and tension that we're witness to.

Deft improvisors know when to leave space as well as when to plow ahead full-bore, and from the evidence offered here Garcia and Gerard-Charest are well-heeled members of that group. They pass sections of phrases back and forth like sisters finishing each other's thoughts, and then quietly hold a harmonic-filled chord together; a ghost come to visit. Things can go from sweet to sour almost imperceptibly, and gaps open which allow new directions to blossom. Squeaky string-polishing leads to full-on scrubbing leads to spot-worrying. There are heated arguments as well as passionate agreement, and everything is beautifully recorded. You can almost feel the wood and wire and hair. Tactile indeed!