In a 2002 interview, percussionist and current AMM member Eddie Pr�vost discussed the prominent trait of a bad improviser: insecurity. Having this characteristic, feeling that you don't quite measure up to the other members or the task at hand, is the cause of sudden bursts of wasted energy, interjectory tangents that lead nowhere and, at the sacrifice of the musical arch the ensemble spent twenty minutes building, the need to dominate the band's ethos. In other words, a child hell-bent on being louder than the next kid, talking over others to get his point across (I spent a recent May afternoon dealing with this scenario until my head nearly imploded, desperately answering "yes", "maybe" and "where did that happen?" as three nine-year-olds spastically barked for attention).

However, Loiter Volcano, though formed from contrasting instruments and personalities, is downright harmonious; three disparate skill sets from electronics (aka electronics/not electronics, or toy instruments, cymbals, effects etc.) adept Paul Abbott, percussionist Leo Dumont and cellist Ute Kanngiesser (also a part-time AMM comrade) may sound at once, but the experience behind the multiple voices allows for an impeccable, commanding vocabulary, not a disjointed Tower of Babel.

Shuffling, plucking and scraping, the trio embarks on a flawless 46-minute flight. Panned right, Dumont patiently fiddles with a snare drum, pulling at the springs and rubbing the membrane; Kanngiesser (center) mutes his strings and channels nervous energy into a mix of dropped bows and hushed pizzicato while Abbott gracefully switches things on and off, snaps metal and bends plastic and wood (rocking back and forth on the floor, perhaps). They cultivate this sound world, sparsely modulating processes and gingerly augmenting color schemes with slow-motion slight of hand, like a vine you don't notice until it overwhelms you. At the 12-minute mark, after a relative tumult of Abbott's patch cord squeaks, Dumont's dull pulse and Kanngiesser's feverish saw, the three sluggishly curtain call and interlude with a brief episode of finger-tapping bongos, dog whistle frequencies and a wash of harmonics before taking flight into another scene, this one seething with twitching, fragmented rhythms. Now focused on intensification rather than development, they work towards pivot points, though never entirely resting.

Near 26 minutes, as the trio sinks into a rocking chair meditation of swirling brushes, spacious melodic intervals and Abbot playing with and rewinding a Dictaphone, you become aware of something: you're completely captive, hanging on the group's every word, and they're not running out of ideas or ways to find new discoveries through a review of motifs � and they don't until, after a stunning finale of Kanngiesser nearly bisecting his soundboard and a hurricane-versus-an-aluminum-roof style cacophony, they put down their smoking instruments, tend to calluses and rub sore temples.

In the hands of technical mastery and inexhaustible imagination, homogeny can be magnificent.