Captured during a live radio session in France in May of 2008, and released by an Israeli label, this disc featuring the double-bass duo of Joelle Leandre and Barre Phillips is an improvised suite that explores startling contrasts of tone and register.

The bass can be a powerful solo instrument because of its size and its resonant lower register, and because it is capable of soaring melodiousness and percussive confabulations. While compared to the brighter, nimbler violin and the more spry cello, the bass can sound like a gruffer relation, but in the seven cuts on this disc we hear the unexpected, from the frenetically polyglot "Gloumplf" to the serene "Aire We" and back to the electrifying "Radio Synapse." "Looking Atcha," has the sliding tones of the two musicians going for it arco and all the dramatic textures that's capable of, then shifting to pizzicato nuances, and singing like a soprano voice one moment or expectorating like a baritone sax the next.

French bassist Leandre is an intrepid excursionist in this kind of music and she's been around the block a time or two. Whether solo or with others, she is a fearless investigator of the sounds the bass is capable of, while being a thinking-on-your feet composer. Phillips, from the United States, has also been doing this for a while and the meeting of both amounts to a loquacious inter-continental event that will please the most discerning creative music enthusiasts and thrill those looking for a bass extravaganza. The pieces flow into one another and one wonders where the time went by the end of this relatively short release of 44 minutes. The recording convinces us of the double bass as an expressive instrument in the hands of two world-class musicians for whom music making is a profound artistic and spiritual experience.