These twelve, trio and quartet-based workouts highlight the artistry of Belgian improvisers who recorded these tracks from 2001 thru 2005. The liners provide in-depth detail, regarding the historical sequence of events, citing various musicians and timelines. Nonetheless, the music sounds fresh and divergent, rooted in acoustic or electro-acoustic formats, oft shaded with an organic vibe.

During these improvisations, you will hear harrowing, vocalise atop circuitous strings and oddly-balanced overtones. And a good portion of these expositions are topped off with moments of wit and whimsy. In essence, no two pieces sound alike, therefore it’s a divergent exposition of how musicians expand and contract various motifs with highly intuitive collaborative skills.

Amid the strings performers' odd-tunings coupled with the hornists’ unlikely twists and turns, the element of surprise looms rather mightily throughout. On "Sur Le Fil," cellist Jose Bedeur’s buzzing lines generate an ominous undertow to complement his musical partners’ gruff voicings, where a sense of the macabre comes to fruition. In other spots, the respective musicians pursue sullen tone poems complete with counterbalancing modes of attack and verbose intercommunication.

In sum, this newly issued product intimates yet another highly potent subset of the ultra-progressive, European improv scene. - Glenn Astarita