Bowed harmonics and a flappy, slappy drum head invite us in. No tentative beginning this, more like a soft entreaty to witness. At 2 minutes in I can't stop smiling and occasionally laughing at the way these two (bass and drums) dance around each other and suddenly hit the same mark simultaneously. Léandre is often sawing away, spinning melody and cooking up tension while Lovens bare-knuckles everything in sight. A string of bells, a metal bowl, the very air itself. The bass becomes an erhu slowed down through alchemical means and a tiny gamelan gets collected under threatening clouds and thunder. How does he get that ratcheting sound?

There are long stretches of quiet intensity, the pair locked in common aim, and quite often quick, sly bits of humor. The bass growls while Léandre coughs up throat-sung incantations, then they both decide to not play a dance rhythm at the same instant. But then they do, Lovens attending to some pitch-bent shuffle while a nursery rhyme melody slowly unwraps itself into some mad double-time bowing. There's a common rise and fall to this music, a sure sign that the particulars are listening hard and providing dividends for anyone who cares to join them. A bit later the bass supplies some beat and the drums flutter all over it. They make it all seem so easy, so perfectly natural and matter of fact. You get the feeling that this pair could go anywhere, from anywhere, and they very frequently do. Quick change and all that it entails.

A good friend of mine says "duos are hard". You wouldn't know it from the evidence provided here.