British humo(u)r is at once popular and perplexing to American audiences: downright silly one in one instance, too subtle to get a handle on in the next. Particular to players around the London Musicians Collective has been an additional self-effacing quality that can make parsing their work (and their statements about their work) difficult. All of which is to say that while White String's Attached, a 1980 duet by violinist Nigel Coombes and pianist Steve Beresford now reissued with added material, is one of the finer examples of improvised music reaching a composed and so-called "classical" level of formality and (perhaps) highbrowicity, the musicians aren't taking it all dreadfully seriously.

Coombes wrote in the liner notes to the original release (included here alongside a reprinted All Music Guide review by Eugene Chadbourne) that Beethoven � who revolutionized the violin sonata, adding substance to its parlor music past � "went through such traumas at trying to make the instruments blend, marrying the percussive sounds of the piano with the singing qualities of the violin, that he gave up after only ten." He goes on to pronounce the pairing as simply "immitgable"; not untenable, just unable to be saved from disaster.

So what disasters await within the 70 or so minutes of White String's Attached (the title quoting text found on a Japanese edition of an album by the Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti)? There is certainly a fair amount of classicism to be found: Brahmsian posturings, Copelandesque reveries and (as Chadbourne points out) dissonances reminiscent of Ives all rise to the surface. But as was common practice among British free improvisers in the '70s and '80s, such moments of musicality don't have long to live. There are the frenzied outbursts common to playing without a rudder (the spontaneous combustion inherent to spontaneous composition), but such moments are kept to a minimum. There is a fair portion of errant noises: scraped strings (on both instruments) bird calls and such. There is also more than the usual allotment of sublime discovery. While the strategies may be familiar, this is not all cheeky pastiche. The abstract rewards are of the highest order.

The disc also includes, quite notably, a wonderful 12 minute violin solo. The Emanem release restores the second half of the third take (that Beresford supplying some especially disarming noise was cut from the original LP issue is itself a bit hilarious) and adds the Coombes solo as the final cut. It is a fairly staggering performance and an opportunity to listen closely to an under appreciated and seriously hilarious musician.