Toshimaru Nakamura � one of the leading and most minimal of minimalist improvisers � has issued dozens of recordings with just about everyone in the Cagean post-AMM stratosphere of sound-making. And pretty reliably the best of those have been duets with acoustic players, taking the "electro-acoustic" moniker literally. His long relationship with guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama has borne some of his most evocative work (including the remarkable In Search of Wild Tulips from 2009, where they are joined by a pair of percussionists. Records with guitarist Annette Krebbs, trumpeter Axel D�rner and "inside piano" player Andrea Neumann have also been very satisfying.

A new duo with a little-recorded guitarist follows in that vein. H�vard Volden plays an acoustic affixed with contact mikes, making a vibrant sound chamber out of the strung wooden box. He's not the first to do so, but it's still a great workbench and he makes good use of it. Minor movements of strings (plucked, muted, struck, brushed) give rise to resonant sounds, and friction against the soundbox makes for a sort of a drum. Volden is also given to nice, rhythmic repetitions, giving raking regularity to the proceedings at times.

All of this works well against Nakamura's no-input mixing board. The sounds he coaxes from within the deck are purely electronic (of course) but very textural; they occupy space in a wide variety of ways. When heard against the familiarity of a vibrating string, the whooshes and squelched buzzings of electicica currents made audible are warmed by the guitar, especially near the end of the second of the two 20-minute tracks, where Volden indulges in some almost conventional playing. Slowly voiced chords and harmonic suspensions give added buoyancy to the ethereal electronic utterances.

In an arena as inventive as the once Nakamura and Volden inhabit, there might be a risk of condemning the "not new." And there may be nothing particularly new here (although Nakamura's playing continues to grow harder and fuller), but it's a great piece of dually improvised sound art.