This duo album's title is certainly apt and yet somehow misleading. There is always something connecting every note Paul Dunmall and Philip Gibbs play to the crystal center of consciousness that spawns dreams; given that, these tracks constitute what one might expect from such improvising powerhouses. All that said, the sound worlds conjured here are quite surprising, as these are not instruments that Dunmall plays often enough, and the results are magical.

From the album's opening moments, a very special universe is entered as Gibbs protean acoustic guitar is timbrally matched by Dunmall's mellow flute, a gentle tone emerging despite myriad changes in articulation and the fluctuating sounds of moving air. Beyond these rhythmically free gestures, a Webernian transparency and clarity inform each phrase and its connection to the next. The same is true on the disc's other tracks, even as the overdubbed textures thicken a bit. Sample the gorgeous register crossings on "Without Touch or Breath" to hear the duo become a quartet as flute, clarinet and two guitars make chamber music. Even the low-register mixture of what sound like contrabassoon and contrabass clarinet on the brief and humorously titled "An Iron Filing Thought it was Really Something until a Magnet Came Along," are rendered with stunning clarity due to stereo placement.

More difficult to articulate, let alone explain, are the fleeting and achingly nostalgic glances toward a tonal language that occur throughout the disc, such as the almost inevitable motion toward a major triad twenty-three seconds into "Two Places at Once." It's the sort of thing that happens to improvisers steeped in a similar language, and such moments are often followed by a slight pause, an instant of reflective silence before the music continues. I never know what to expect from Dunmall and company, no matter how many discs cross my desk, and this one may be one of the best in his large and growing FMR catalog.