A great set of four improvisations from a string trio of viola, cello and guitar. The opening salvo here is a grand plunge downward, en masse. It's an arresting start which grabs your attention and serves as a pointer. We're going down to ground level to investigate the waysides, the places generally ignored.

The music here skirts the edges of the conventional (though that appellation is becoming ever more meaningless), and accrues weight by compiling a catalogue of detritus. The musicians may flirt with chordal progression or romantic imagery, but then veer off to investigate the grain of a bow hair, the ridges on a guitar string. Very often they go way beyond sounds usually associated with these instruments, constructing conglomerates of wooden flutes or the distant chug of a locomotive. Buzzes and bell-like harmonics sit amidst quiet distorted clangs for a minute, then some soft fumbling over in the corner catches your ear. Piled up arpeggios dissolve into squeaky harmonics or quiet sawing.

Each of these four pieces (the four words of the title) progresses "naturally" it seems, with no superfluous energy or forced point of view. A tangle of quick playing occasionally evolves out of nowhere. A wealth of detail invites careful attention, and humor is never far from view. Is that a bass drum I hear?