A Lean, Eerie Duo Statement
Trumpet, guitar, effects, original compositions – abstractions.
Americans Akinmusire and Halvorson developed the material in early 2025, rehearsing and performing it at New York’s The Stone before recording the album the following day at Sear Sound.
The outcome is lean. There is no fat on the bone. It sounds lonesome, often elegiac, and at times has the feel of a Covid-era record – those eerie duo and solo sessions frequently recorded in isolation or under pressure. Although this album was recorded with both musicians in the same room, it still carries that same starkness.
Controlled Abstraction from Two Distinct Voices
It’s been a while since I last heard Ambrose Akinmusire live – at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho. I saw Mary Halvorson more recently at the Vortex in Dalston in a band led by Ches Smith. Both musicians have moved through different contexts since then, but their individual signatures remain unmistakable.
Much less intense than Clone Row, this is a different, more restrained approach, though still edgy—particularly in the noises and effects on Halvorson’s tune “This Vivid”. Halvorson is less microtonal here than usual, but her signature sound is still unmistakable; in a blindfold test, she would be hard to mistake for anyone else.
Akinmusire, whom I first heard years before he became widely known as a leader in a Steve Coleman big band at the Southbank, uses electronic delay processing here. It is subtle enough not to interfere with his core voice. His playing remains cerebral and mournful, but capable of sudden bursts of transcendental rapture. On the title track in particular, he plays with striking stillness.
There is not much here in terms of maximalist statement, and that is to its credit. But the tunes come and go quickly, so it does not feel like a major work in either player’s discography. It is, however, a consistently engaging listen. The pointillist cover art does not give much away either: a dense grid of tiny dots shifting from deep purple to vivid pink, creating a kind of neon shimmer. It raises as many questions as the music itself.
The motifs – if they can be called that – feel more like phrases or clauses within clauses. They overlap and weave in and out of chromaticism and a kind of burnt blue tonal field, producing an appealing warmth and glow that resists easy resolution.
It is unlikely you will come away humming anything. It is not that kind of album. There is no obvious beat or pulse, but that is not a problem; the duo sustain a hovering line and take it into unexpected places.
Akinmusire will play the EFG London Jazz Festival at Kings Place on 15 November; Halvorson is also touring in November in Spain, Italy and Croatia with her new band Canis Major, featuring Dave Adewumi, Henry Fraser, and Tomas Fujiwara.
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