Mark Dresser/Denman Maroney

You see "double bass and piano" as the listed instruments on a CD tray-card and you figure you'll be settling in for an hour or so of bop and chime-y jazz, but in the hands of Dresser and Maroney, those expectations clatter quickly away. Long-time collaborators, the two assemble on this studio recording to examine the interstices generated by overdriving stringed things. Maroney's methodology is termed "hyper-piano" - a direct manipulation of the piano strings while playing the keyboard, both with objects placed inside the soundboard and by hand. The resulting sound stretches into pulses, drones and gamelan-like tolls, seeming to multiply the number of instruments involved in the music. Dresser's attack is physically more traditional, no celery stalks through the strings or the like, but his sound shadows Maroney's shade for shade, from barely perceivable string plucks to avalanches of overtones from torturous bowing. And so it goes, loud to soft, overbearing to timid, manic to languorous - the 14 tracks offer an easy listen to an ear appreciative of colour.