Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock has a mastery of tone on her instruments – tenor and soprano – and her rich sonic vocabulary shines through the 13 tracks on this album of improvised dialogues with drummer Tom Rainey.

That said, she must therefore be held responsible for two of the most excruciating ‘listens’ imaginable: short tracks where she catches the inconsolable anguish of a screaming baby with heart-wrenching accuracy. Those are two of six brief Brink tracks that alternate with longer, more complex pieces, each showcasing the beautifully balanced simpatico of the two players.

It reflects on their long-standing collaboration (they married in 2010) as much as the wide range of their individual careers, but also derives from the enforced enclosure of the pandemic lockdown that kept the couple in their New York apartment (with a baby next door?).

If the album seems saxophone-led, it is because of Rainey's diffidently economical drumming, always well-judged whether sketching a spacious and atmospheric context for Laubrock's melodic meandering on ‘Flock of Consciousness’ or a simmering repressed undertone to ‘Arrival of Never’.

Only on the lengthy ‘Scrunch Repercussions’ can you catch time signatures, the episodic piece shifting gear through 5, 4, 6 and 3 while Laubrock surrenders hyper-fast sax to the drummer's rhythmic impulse. Brink closes with ‘Said, Been Said’ – a Beckett-y title for a piece that does indeed evoke emptiness and a sense of resigned despair – but the album as a whole offers a very positive palette of human experience tinged with the warmth of so harmonious a couple.