Australian bassist Majkowski was until now unknown to me, but a quick run of the internet shows that he's a member of the Jazz Faculty at the Wollongong Conservatorium Of Music and a member of the Sydney big band Splinter Orchestra. So much for pedigrees, what's he sound like?

Pizzicato is just that, a collection of mostly higher-pitched fingerings with lots of sliding tones and bits of buzz and clack sticking to the notes like so much dirt. Occasional super-quick little rattles and figures break up the proceedings. "Foam and Straw" is a shorter exploration of bowing, recalling birdsong and displaying ear-grabbing harmonic overtones. When Majkowski dives in to the low end toward the end of the piece, there's a beautiful crustiness to the sound. "First Words, Dribble" conjurs up its namesake with skittering and bouncing bow action and more wonderful overtones, augmented by wordless vocalizing. There's an awful lot going on here at any one point, a lot of information to take in and/or process. There's a lot of humor as well.

The stand out piece for me is the title track of overdubbed short, scrubbed notes which quickly build up to a fairly thick tapestry of squeaky bows and metallic plucks. Try not to follow the sounds, just stick your ears in and let it all cascade down on them. Nutty.

The final "Current" begins with deep note clusters struck and let rung. A really interesting sound here, like big chords are being strummed, with one or two notes buzzing or almost distorting in the midst of a cloud of hanging overtones. It's another in a fine collection of intriguing sounds and well-built improvisations.

A final word: perhaps it's just my circle of "research", but there do seem to be a lot of improvised acoustic bass recordings around at the moment. That's just an observation, not a complaint.