German cellist Elisabeth Coudoux and American guitarist Chuck Roth meet for three extended improvisations on Tomaten auf den Augen, their debut duo recording, captured during a short American tour in August 2025. Recorded in Philadelphia, the album brings together two musicians whose exploratory approaches emphasize the physical properties of their instruments, creating an unpredictable dialogue of shifting textures, fractured gestures, and spontaneous interaction.

Coudoux, a Cologne-based improviser and composer, approaches the cello through unconventional bowing techniques, percussive articulation, and an expansive vocabulary of acoustic sounds. Roth, based in New York, works with electric guitar without pedals, effects, or additional objects, drawing a surprising range of timbres directly from the instrument. Together they create a constantly evolving interplay in which the boundaries between acoustic and electric sound frequently become difficult to distinguish.

The three pieces, "Paper," "Scissors," and "Rock," each unfold over approximately 13 to 15 minutes, developing through contrasting passages of delicate resonance, abrasive friction, and sudden shifts in density. Rather than establishing conventional melodic or rhythmic structures, the duo builds its improvisations through close attention to the smallest sonic details, allowing isolated gestures to generate new directions and moments of silence to become integral parts of the conversation.

At times intimate and restrained, elsewhere volatile and confrontational, Tomaten auf den Augen reveals a shared curiosity about the possibilities of instrumental sound. Coudoux and Roth demonstrate an intuitive understanding of each other's methods, constructing music that moves freely between fragile acoustic textures and more forceful, almost electroacoustic complexity, while retaining the immediacy and unpredictability of collective free improvisation.