There are a lot of dirt roads just outside the town I live in. Driving on them slowly is best, as this allows the surroundings to better seep in. The detail of the landscape is easier to see if one isn't racing along. And so it is with Linda Catlin Smith's Dirt Road. Traverse it slowly and the detail appears.

Originally commissioned for a dance, this 70-minute piece for violin (played here by Mira Benjamin) and percussion (by Simon Limbrick) is divided into 15 sections that can be listened to in any order. On the surface most of them seem simple, a drone or short melody on the strings accompanied by one or another of a small array of percussion instruments. Close attention will reveal a wealth of grit and grain, as well as ghostly harmonic content. Track 2's slow melody underpinned by soft vibraphone lines and chords is a good example of the latter, the sometimes consonant sometimes dissonant pairing creating clouds of beating frequencies. The combination's soft haze resembles more a free reed instrument, a harmonica or sho perhaps, than the bowing and tapping that it is.

Small changes can be startling, an additional string or a sudden metallic chord opening up a new direction, a side road glimpsed but not taken. Track 4 begins with a single high note on both instruments, the scrape of the bow quite evident. Additional harmonic information is provided by the eventual appearance of hanging chords, the whole disappearing into sibilance after a mere 3 minutes. Gong tones sound at the end of Track 5 and continue into Track 6, providing a more ambiguous underpinning to long-held string notes. A triangle's ping adds occasional counterpoint. The seesawing vibraphone/sonorous bass drum of Track 7 provides minimal swing for a series of sparse slowly bowed notes. The whole was beautifully recorded by Simon Reynell, placing the sounds in stark relief and rewarding strict attention.