Improviser, inventor, luthier and font designer Hans Reichel never really received his proper due, a predilection for self-made mutant instrumentation possibly perpetuating a perception of mad professor bent on exhibiting gimmicky gadgetry rather than audio audacity. Let's hope these two reissues, originally released on the legendary FMP imprint, will instigate a sizeable rethink on Reichel's vital contributions. Undoubtedly his ideas and rapid-tapping tactics have endured, their impact continuing to resonate with a proliferation of current practitioners. There are moments, for instance, on the delightfully abstract, but often challenging, Wichlinghauser Blues that prefigure a primitivist take on David Fiuczynski's absurd micro-tonal adventures, oscillating wildly between an ersatz gamelan and proxy ragtime piano, before dipping into quick-fire scatterings that buzz about like a bluebottle fleet trapped between the strings of Susan Alcorn's pedal steel. Bonobo is more restrained, Reichel increasingly settled into the potentialities of his homemade 11-stringer, the music's heightened accessibility affording a potent whiff of crooked blues, conjuring images of Bill Orcutt taming his decrepit acoustic with electrified tongues of reed.