In many hands, the demure cello would hardly be a match for the powerful horns of Peter Brotzmann, but Fred Lonberg-Holm was well armed for their duo concert at The Hideout in Chicago in November, 2007. His use of electronics, as compellingly evidenced on his solo CD Dialogs, released on Emanem in 2004, has impressively extended the range of his already versatile cello. He meets Brotzmann's powerful arsenal (alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet and torogato) with a wealth of available textures. The first moment the bow is heard against the strings here, the sound is huge — not loud, but encompassing. His use of distortion melds nicely with the scream of the sax, and his sparse tonal eruptions compliment the clarinet well in quieter passages.

The disc — at 38 minutes short by CD standards — isn't all about electronic manipulation, but that does seem to be what defines much of the session. They hit the ground hard, but by 10 minutes in have resolved in a nice acoustic moment. It's unclear if all of Lonberg-Holms' electronics are cello-driven, but at times he seems responsible for two-thirds of a trio set. It's a well-varied set; it would have been nice to hear where all they might have gone in twice the time.