"Multi-reedist Brenders is a fixture of Toronto's creative music scene. Known most prominently for his work as artistic director of the Association of Improvising Musicians in Toronto (or more managably known as AIMToronto) Orchestra, he also keeps busy with his quartet (which also features his sparring partner on this disc) and The Rent, a co-led group exploring the music of Steve Lacy. And then, as a former student of Anthony Braxton while studying at Wesleyan University, it made sense to bring the saxophonist/composer to Toronto to work with the large AIMToronto group. This meeting resulted in a duo recording from the two horn-ists, as well as a document of orchestra's work with Braxton. One doesn't have to spend long leafing through band personnel listings to find Brandon Valdivia, either. His earlier work with the trio I Have Eaten The City (their praises sung loudly by Bug Incision labelmates Aaron Leaney and Simeon Abbott) was the first time Bug Incision became familiar with his work, and it didn't take long to find his name inside of Picastro album covers, or playing in the fantastic duo Not The Wind, Not The Flag, with Colin Fisher (all their releases are essential listening, definitely part of why things are so happening in Toronto these days).

Anyway, these two are no stangers to one another, and this disc is proof of that. There is an easy exchange between the two, never allowing any statement or reply to seem too overzealous or contrived. Valdivia seems to favour a variety of alternatives to drumsticks for the majority of the recording, opting for mallets, bundlesticks and the like. A new spectrum of tone and attack choices is presented when one moves away from the pinpoint clarity of the drumstick, and he covers it nobly, coaxing much more throaty, hand-drum-like voices from his tubs. This fact, combined with his inclination to leave his snares mostly in the "off" position, makes for a real drumset-as-whole-instrument feel, very Andrew Cyrille. But just as often as you're treated this whole-drumset conception, he is perfectly okay with breaking away for a second to foreground a wonderfully-executed, crescendo'd drum roll or the resonant qualities of a particular piece of metal. This all works well with Brenders, whose invitingly dry, warm sound falls somewhere between the fluffy jocularity of Tobias Delius, his old mentor Braxton's gnarled extended techniques, and the tangled tenor sax stylings of Evan Parker. In fact, the latter's duo album with Eddie Prevost, Imponderable Evidence, makes for a useful analog. Un-fussy, -hurried, and -forced. Glad to have another slice of Toronto's current crop out there."-Bug Incision